


Vigilance II: The Hand That Feeds

by nightinngales



Series: Vigilance [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Based Heavily on the Vigilant mod by Vicn, F/F, Mod References, Modded Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:41:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinngales/pseuds/nightinngales
Summary: Following the death of her father, Eres inherits a small estate within Falkreath. After reluctantly joining the Vigilants to earn the money she needs to fund the estate, Eres inadvertently gets dragged into a sinister plot.
Series: Vigilance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585780
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This act is based heavily upon the first chapter of the Vigilant mod by Vicn (Nexus #11849). I highly recommend playing the mod, but you don't need to play it in order to read the fic itself. Eres' journey through the mod diverges a bit more about halfway through, but this act follows the mod's questline pretty closely, so if you've played the mod you will likely recognize much of it here.

ACT II  
CHAPTER I

“I heard you were looking for work.”

Eres turns, and her eyes land upon a familiar looking man. She can’t remember where, but she’s certain she’s seen this Vigilant before. She remembers that she had been unsettled then, and the feeling is no different now.

“The Vigilants are always looking for new recruits,” the man says, and his lips curl into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “If you’re hard up for coin, the Order pays well enough.”

“Is that so?” She eyes him cautiously. Aside from the unmistakable robes of a Vigilant, there is nothing about him that would suggest anything other than a normal, unassuming man. She's certain she's seen him somewhere before, but she can't quite place him. 

Old enough to be her father, but young enough that his hair is still a rich shade of deep brown beneath his hood, his skin appears weathered more from a hard life than from age alone. There is a scar running from just a corner of his left eyebrow across to the bridge of his nose, a testament to an incredibly close call that might have cost an unluckier man an eye. He wears the scar well, giving him a rugged appearance rather than a brutish one.

“Just so,” he says. His thin smile remains. “My name is Altano. It’s nice to meet you…?” He raises his brows at her.

“Eres,” she says simply. “I’m afraid I’m not much for following the Divines.” She’s never been particularly religious.

Altano shrugs, as if that hardly matters when pledging yourself to a God’s service. “Many of our new recruits feel that way at first. Not all of us are as fanatical in our belief as you may have heard.”

He reaches out to grasp her forearm into an embrace that she had not offered. She’s careful not to let her discomfort show on her face.

“You don’t have to decide just now, of course. But you can always come to the Temple if you decide it’s a path you would like to follow. It is honest, steady work.”

“I’ll consider it,” she promises.

It is somewhat discomfiting, even to herself, that she is not lying.

While she had managed to find a bit of work here and there, traveling from Fellburg to Whiterun and then further north to Morthal and Dawnstar, what work she had found had not paid quite enough. Running a small fief was expensive, and far more so than even she had expected. Taking the odd job here and there was good enough to put a bit of coin into her pocket, but even her most lucrative adventures – often involving unfortunate bandits who had managed to amass a hefty bounty (and a fair amount of loot for her to take as her own) – was still not enough, between the rising costs of operating what was, in effect, a small hold. From the materials needed to repair the Keep, to those needed for further construction, to the coin she must raise in order to hire and salary a small contingent of guards to patrol the perimeter of her lands – the costs of making Fellburg functional seemed to rise exponentially with each passing day.

Vigilants, however, from her understanding, seemed to spend most of their time chasing ghosts of rumored Daedric worship, and setting those they did find on the proper path.

But Eres has had her fair share of run-ins with the Princes already.

First the poor man Sinding, in Falkreath, who’d been cursed by Hircine and then had gleefully passed that curse to her – she’d been forced to kill him to avoid incurring Hircine’s wrath, but not before she had, of course, been forced to capture his attention, however briefly.

Then Meridia, too, had turned Her eyes upon Eres, after she’d found her Beacon amongst the assortment of jewels and gems a group of bandits had managed to pilfer from unsuspecting travelers on the roads just north of Rorikstead. She’d had to deliver that Beacon to Kilkreath and fight her way through the shadows of warriors past, and put an end to the Necromancer who’d made his home there. It had not been one of her favorite experiences.

All things said, Eres can almost understand what might draw someone to worshipping such beings. She had essentially stumbled blindly into both of them, not a Daedric worshipper by any definition of the word, and yet they had both bestowed upon her gifts when she’d pleased them.

Hircine, who’d blessed her armor with an enchantment, and Meridia, who had bequeathed to her the sword which she called ‘Dawnbreaker’, which, while heftier than the lighter daggers and shortswords Eres preferred to use in close combat, was certainly useful against the undead when the need arose.

She could see why one might be attracted to worshipping a God that might shower blessings upon those who appeased them.

That did not, however, mean that she wanted anything to do with them. Eres could do well without their meddling, and wouldn’t be so opposed to preventing other innocent people – such as herself – from falling into the trap of finding themselves serving a Daedric Prince.

The promise of a steady income besides, outside of relying on the generosity of those who happened to employ her, was an attractive prospect in its own right.

Eres promises Altano that she would consider it, and she does just that – she spends far too much of her night staring at the ceiling of her room, mulling the decision over in her head.

_Could_ she be a Vigilant, when she has no particular attachment to Stendarr Himself? Were the Divines anything like the Daedric Lords, constantly involving themselves in mortal affairs? Would Stendarr accept her service, knowing she was not faithful, or would he be the sort of God to smite her for her false dedication?

Eres turns on her side, and closes her eyes with a sigh.

She has made her decision. But she is not happy with it.

What meaning does happiness have, without also the promise of security?

Eres thinks of Yosef and Johanna back at Fellburg. Of little Julia, and even littler Neil, and she knows what she must do.

Altano’s offer may be the best she will receive, and she must do all that she can to ensure the safety of those back home. 

The next morning, Altano greets her with a smile, and a handshake. When he looks at her, his eyes glimmer with a certain, hidden thrill that Eres isn’t quite sure what to make of.


	2. Chapter 2

ACT III  
CHAPTER II

“There’s not much to see, I’m afraid. We Vigilants lead a simple life,” Altano says, gesturing about himself at the Temple.

Eres can see that. She had not been expecting much, anyways.

The Temple doors opened into a short hall that functioned both as an entry way, and it seemed, as an altar. At the end of the hall is a massive, stone sculpture of Stendarr, the old man with his robes, a goblet in one hand and his hand outstretched, palm up, in the other, as if beseeching the viewer. At his feet, the dais is scattered with numerous offerings to his likeness – a stack of old, worn books so old the spines were cracked and falling apart, a number of crystal goblets stained red with wine, a collection of jewels and pendants. Eres has always wondered what use a god has for such material offerings – it only seems an invitation for a temple to be robbed blind.

“To the right,” Altano points, where the hall opens up on one side into a small room, within which is a table laid with a map upon it, a couple of bookcases, and a table adorned with a number of flasks, a mortar and pestle, and a collection of various ingredients. “There is our alchemy laboratory. We do try to keep a stock of potions, but if you’ve a talent for alchemy…” He trails off.

Eres shakes her head. Alchemy is one of numerous studies she had never done well with. She hadn’t the patience for it as a child, and that patience had not grown much since then.

Altano shrugs. “There are plenty of old men here with nothing better to do,” he says, and doesn’t seem to notice the collection of glares directed his way. “Upstairs, you’ll find the bunks. Downstairs is our library, and our record keeper, Gwyneth – she’ll get your measurements and ensure you’re properly outfitted for our assignment.”

Eres raises a brow at this. An assignment already? They’ve only just walked in the door a few minutes ago. The snow on her cloak has barely even melted yet.

“Don’t worry,” Altano throws her what he seems to think is a disarming grin. “I’ll let you rest up, first – but we’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow. You should take advantage of the downtime. We don’t get a lot of it.”

Then Altano pulls her forward by her arm, until she can see into the hall on her left. Within it is what appears to be a small study, or perhaps some kind of prayer room. There is nothing inside it save for benches and a fire place, but in one of the chairs next to the fire sits an elderly Altmeri man, adorned in long, flowing green robes.

“This is Thorondir, our Keeper. You should make sure to introduce yourself to him before you go wandering around the Temple. Be sure to get some sleep; we leave at first light.”

Eres barely has time to nod at him before Altano walks away from her, and disappears around a corner. With a sigh, Eres approaches the old man.

“Ah,” he looks up as she closes in on him, as if expecting her. She imagines he was – his hearing is likely as good as hers, and she and Altano hadn’t been standing very far. It also serves that sound seems to always travel within a temple such as this one, with its high ceilings and open architecture.

“You must be the new recruit Altano brought in.” He rises from his seat and brings his hands in front of him as he stands to his full height.

Eres’ neck cranes back to look up at him. While she is not especially tall by any means, she has rarely felt so completely dwarfed by another person before. Altmeri were known for their height and slender builds, and this man is no exception. The top of her head just barely reaches his collarbone.

“I am Thorondir,” he says mildly, with a practiced, polite smile. He bows his head a bit at her, as graceful and poised as any noble. “I am the Keeper of the Vigilants here in the Northern part of Skyrim. I, along with Keeper Carcette in the Rift, are tasked with spreading the influence of our glorious Stendarr, and protecting the realm from those that might corrupt it.”

How strange, to see an Altmer here in Skyrim as a Vigilant, and not with the Dominion.

It’s hardly Eres’ first time meeting an Altmer, growing up in the seat of the Empire as she had, but it is perhaps the first time she has met one who shows warmth in his expressions. She has always thought they seemed cold and unfeeling. Thorondir, on the other hand, gives the aura of a caring and wise grandfatherly figure.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Aaah,” he intones, slow and deep in his throat. His eyes, almost hidden entirely beneath the wrinkles on his face, seem to light with recognition. “Bosmeri, is it?” He tilts his head, and regards her critically. He leans to one side as if to get a better look at her. “No, half? One of your parents is not of the People.”

“My father was a Nord,” she answers. Had it been anyone else, she may have been disturbed by his interest. But this man – being so closely related to her own people, and with his aura of easy warmth – puts her at ease. “My mother was from the Homeland.”

Thorondir hums. “But you have never been.”

“No,” she admits. She’s always wondered at the home of her people – Valenwood has always seemed a bit like a dream. Trees that move? She can scarcely imagine it. But it sounded nice enough.

“You should,” Thorondir smiles at her, and reaches out to pat her shoulder. “Falinesti is quite the sight to see. I imagine your mother has told you of it?”

Eres shakes her head. “My mother disappeared when I was a child. I don’t remember much of her,” she admits. “I can just barely remember that—” she doesn’t know why, but she feels almost compelled to tell him, “I think she told me I shouldn’t run in front of the trees.” She frowns, her brow furrowing. She can remember the phrase itself, for some reason, but as always, trying to recall her mother—what she looked like, what she sounded like, anything about her—leaves her coming up blank, like the memories are mere wisps that pass through her fingers each time she tries to reach for them.

“Well, of course you shouldn’t,” Thorondir’s lips stretch into a grin. He leans down, his eyes twinkling, as if he’s sharing a scandalous secret. “The trees might get jealous.” When he leans back to laugh, she thinks maybe he’s having one over on her, but there is nothing about him to suggest that he might be the kind of person to mock someone in such a way. Rather, it seems more that he laughs at an age old jest she’s never been privy to.

“But,” he says suddenly, and he sighs a little regretfully. “I have talked your ear off more than enough, I am sure. Don’t let the ramblings of an old man detract you from your duties. I believe you must see Gwyneth?” And he turns his body, and gestures towards the hall where a set of stairs led downward. “You have an early day tomorrow, after all.”

“So I’ve heard,” Eres nods. In the same manner as Thorondir, she bows her head in deference. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Keeper.” And she means it – it was. She cannot say that about many people, but with Thorondir, she means it.

“And you, as well,” Thorondir says as he carefully, slowly lowers himself back into his seat; a testament to his age. Mer do not age so quickly as humans. Thorondir, Eres thinks, must be well over a hundred – possibly two. Would he ever retire, or did he plan on living out the entirety of his long life as the Keeper?

Eres turns away from Thorondir, and makes her way down the stairs.

The library, as it turns out, is little more than a room not much bigger than her own personal chambers back at Fellburg, with bookcases that line the walls from floor to ceiling on three sides, and a singular, long desk situated at the other end. Behind that desk is a neatly made bed, a storage chest, and a small table with only one chair.

Behind the desk sits a woman who looks as though she is barely out of her teens; a stark contrast to the Vigilants that Eres has seen thus far—mostly elderly men, well past their primes, who spend their time poring over old tomes. She imagines, of course, that there must be younger Vigilants about, but they would be those like Altano, and now herself, who travel Skyrim hunting Daedra rather staying holed up in a temple tucked away in the mountains.

The woman—or girl, rather—is pretty in a homely, plain sort of way. Blonde hair curls about her temples where it has loosened from the sensible braided bun that forms almost a halo at the crown of her head. Her eyes, large and green, are still bright with the cheer and curiosity of a young girl, and the soft smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks only add to her youthful appearance.

This girl could be quite beautiful, Eres thinks, were she not restricted to dressing herself in the drab, worn robes of a Vigilant.

“Hello,” Eres greets her, as the girl’s eyes turn to meet her own.

“Hello,” the blonde’s voice is soft and melodic, and her lips curl into a polite, practiced smile. “Please don’t take any books.”

Eres blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“The books,” the girl says. “We only have one copy of each. If you’d like to look at them, you’re welcome to, but they have to stay within the library.”

“Oh,” Eres shakes her head. “That’s not why I’m here.” She moves forward to stand at the end of the desk, and bends her waist in a short bow. “I’m Eres. I was told you’re meant to measure me.”

“Oh!” The girl stands so abruptly from her seat that the sound of the chair scraping across the floor hurts Eres’ sensitive ears.

“My apologies, I didn’t realize. My name is Gwyneth,” and she, too, dips respectfully – but rather into some imitation of a gracious curtsy that is somewhat ruined by the lack of a proper dress to perform it with. “I am the record keeper here.”

“So I’ve been told.” Gwyneth is barely taller than Eres herself; a rarity in a land populated by Nordic men and women who seem not to know when to stop growing. Eres notices then the pointed tips of Gwyneth’s ears, and holds back a smile.

“Come, let us get you fitted.”

The next morning, Altano wakes her well before dawn’s light. The room is still dark as pitch, only illuminated by the candle Altano holds far too close to her face.

“Get dressed. We have a long way to go,” he says. He, himself, is already dressed and geared up, looking as though he’s been awake for hours – or perhaps, had never slept at all. He pulls a mask up over his mouth and nose, and with his hood raised and only his eyes visible, he is not the most comforting sight first thing in the morning. “We have an assignment in Whiterun.”

Altano does at least have the grace to allow her to dress in private, throwing her robes over her trousers and the shirt she’d slept in. They’re not particularly warm, loose and almost thread-bare, and so she pulls her overcoat over that, and holds it all closed with her belts.

She greets him with a yawn as she steps out of her room, and he chuckles.

“We have a long ride ahead of us. You can sleep on the way, if you’re still tired.”

Eres yearns for the tea she had back at Fellburg, but the Vigilants aren’t much for creature comforts, and so she will have to do without.

From Dawnstar to Whiterun is a long way, indeed. Even with the added speed of horse and carriage, it takes nearly a full day to traverse the snowy pass south through the mountains into Whiterun hold, and they spend the night camped not far from the road along with the carriage driver.

“The life of a Vigilant is a dangerous one,” Altano tells her, across the fire. “I’ve noticed you have some skill with a bow, but not everything can be fought from a distance.”

Eres decides not to tell him about her magic. Few people in Skyrim, she’d found, react well to a mage. She knows that many Vigilants have some skill with Restoration magic, of course, but that has never been her specialty. Magic of the more destructive variety has never been regarded pleasantly by anyone other than fellow mages.

“I do have a sword, should the need arise.” That she may have borrowed it from whoever might have slept in her room previously, she feels no need to disclose. She’d had her own dagger, of course, but she’d been surprised by the light weight of the fine-crafted silver sword she’d found there. “I’ve had some level of training.”

“Oh?” Altano’s brows rise with interest. “And who might have trained an Elf girl like yourself in swordsmanship?”

Ah, yes. Who would imagine an ‘Elf girl’ trained in anything but the use of bows?

“My father,” she says shortly, and offers nothing else.

Altano seems to note her reluctance to speak of him. He merely nods sagely. “Smart man,” he says. “That sword will do you well against the Daedra – and any other unnatural beings we might come across. That bow won’t do you any good up close.”

“That’s why you don’t let them get close.”

Altano merely smiles. “Fair enough, Novice.”

One doesn’t make it twenty-three summers in Tamriel without seeing a dead body. That is just the way of the world. Eres has seen more than her fair share, some of those dead by her own hand.

But she has never seen one like this.

“How long ago did this happen?” Eres’ eyes rake the form of the corpse upon the slab, with its blue-white skin, hollowed out, glazed over eyes, and the two, almost neatly placed punctures upon the neck, black against the paleness of the man’s skin.

“Just tonight,” the priest answers, folding his hands within the long sleeves of his robes. He stares at the body dispassionately, in the way only a man who has worked with the dead can. “The guards found him a few hours ago, behind Warmaiden’s, propped up against a crate.”

Eres frowns. By the look of the man, she’d have guessed that he’d been dead much longer. “How long might he have been there?”

“Less than a single mark,” the priest says gravely. “The guard’s patrol crosses behind Warmaiden’s. For him to walk the wall and back may have taken half an hour, at most.”

Her frown deepens.

Beside her, Altano crosses his arms. “Bold of her,” he mutters.

“What makes you think this vampire is a woman?”

Altano turns to her. “All of her victims have been male, all lured to back alleys or hidden places in the dead of night. And all of those men were seen at the Bannered Mare or Drunken Huntsman some time prior. There isn’t a man about who can’t recognize a vampire when he sees one,” he shrugs. “They’re easy to spot. But a drunken man, driven by lust? That would be an easy target, even for a newly turned vampire.”

He turns to her then. “Consider this your first test, Novice. Find that vampire, and put her to rest. She shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, even freshly blooded. Newly turned vampires are impulsive, but weak. I imagine that bow will do you quite nicely.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am not a man.”

Altano still has the mask covering the lower half of his face, but from the look in his eyes, she gets the impression that he’s smirking at her.

“I am quite aware. Still,” he looks her up and down. “I think you could pass for the type of woman who might… entertain the affections of the fairer sex. Perhaps she’ll make an exception for you.”

She scowls at him. He’s not entirely wrong, but she doesn’t like the idea of essentially whoring herself out to a vampire.

“And if that doesn’t work,” he shrugs again. “Identify her, and keep an eye on her until she’s alone. Then dispense of her and return to me.”

Eres doesn’t have much experience with picking up whores – that is, she has none at all – but she’s fairly certain it’s not supposed to go like this.

“Would you like to try my sweet rolls?”

The woman who approaches her is barely more than a girl, possibly even younger than Eres herself, with a fine red dress and riding cloak and, most notably, amber eyes that Eres can just see the tinges of red in. She knew that vampires supposedly had an easier time of blending in when they were freshly fed, but even still, it was hard to miss her pale, ghost-like countenance and bright eyes that almost seem to glow in the dim lighting of the Bannered Mare.

“Sweet rolls?”

The girl’s lips curl into a coy smile. “Yesss,” she drawls, almost hissing with the word. Eres can _just_ see a glimpse of her sharp canines in her mouth when she smiles. “I have such delicious sweet rolls. Would you like my sweet roll?”

Is this really what men were falling for? Five men, at that, in so many days? The tragedy of the male sex.

But, Eres has a role to play. She holds back her exasperated sigh and instead nods.

“Of course I’d like to. I’m sure your sweet rolls are…delicious,” she manages.

The young vampire’s smile widens further. “I’m afraid I’ve left them elsewhere… Would you mind coming with me? It’s so dangerous for a lady to walk alone at night, don’t you think?” And she offers her hand in what Eres is sure she thinks is a dainty, demure gesture.

Eres should be commended on how much effort it takes her not to roll her eyes. “Oh, of course. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you,” she drawls.

Somehow, the girl doesn’t seem to notice the sarcasm, and merely grabs her by the hand and leads her through the kitchen of the Bannered Mare, avoiding the front door entirely.

 _I wonder why that might be,_ Eres does roll her eyes, then, now that the girl’s back is facing her.

Wordlessly, she follows the young vampire out of the inn, and around the back.

The girl stops suddenly, waiting, and Eres watches as a guard appears from around the corner, strolling casually along the perimeter of the wall behind the inn. The hand in her own tightens briefly as he passes, then loosens as the girl moves past him, taking Eres along with her, down the path the guard has just vacated.

Not suspicious at all.

Eres sees where the girl is leading her – to the same place, she expects, that she’d dispatched of the man who’d died earlier that night. She can see the high roof of Warmaiden’s just in the distance through the dark.

With her free hand, Eres closes her fingers around the silver dagger she’d tucked at her waist.

Even knowing what the girl has done, how many she has killed, Eres hesitates. It is more difficult than she expects to separate the vampire’s girlish face from the monster she is inside. But it must be done, for the safety of the citizens in Whiterun – and, of course, her pay as a Vigilant.

She releases the girl’s hand, grasping the soft, girlish shoulder, unsheathes her dagger, and just as the girl’s head begins to turn—she plunges it into the back of her neck at the base of her skull with all her might.

She feels the girl jerk. She hears the splutter of her voice as she tries to speak. She sees the girl’s hands raise, up to her chest and then her throat and then—

Her body goes limp, and her weight drags at the blade for only an instant before she crumples to the ground, well and truly dead—for the second time.

Eres wipes her dagger clean on her thigh, and sighs. She hadn’t enjoyed that.

“Hey, you! What are you doing there—” _schwink_! “Stop, murderer!”

The guard, just returning on his patrol, comes running with his sword drawn.

“It’s a vampire,” she shouts back, before he decides to run her through. He stumbles, comes to a sudden stop, and then approaches more slowly.

He looks at the girl lying dead on the ground, not bleeding despite the obvious stab wound in the back of her neck, and then at her – in her Vigilant robes. “Ah, you’re the Vigilant they called for,” he frowns, and sheathes his sword, though not without giving her a dubious look as he does. “You’re sure this is the one?”

“You’re welcome to check her teeth,” Eres offers, gesturing.

The guard takes one look at her and grimaces. “I’ll take your word for it, Vigilant. I’ll …” he hesitates, then sighs. “Take care of the body. I s’pose you have things to do.”

Had he been expecting _her_ to handle it? She could technically just incinerate her, but well. What was the use in wasting her magicka on something like that?

She nods at him in return, and makes her way back to the Hall of the Dead.

“Huh,” Altano nods. “So she was posing as a prostitute. Is that why you look so refreshed?”

Eres glares at him. Is this what he considers a joke? “Very funny.”

He laughs, anyways. “Well, good job, Novice. We’ll make a proper Vigilant of you yet. The priests will finish everything else. We’re done here. You should get some rest.” He pulls down his mask, seemingly only to allow her to see his self-satisfied smile. “I think I’ll go in search of my own… _refreshment_ ,” he says, and his grin widens as he brushes past her.

In his wake, she grimaces. Altano finding “refreshment” was just about the last thing she ever wanted to think about.

She hopes he finds somewhere other than the Bannered Mare to do it. She’d like to at least get _some_ sleep tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

ACT II  
CHAPTER III

Altano tosses Eres a fat coin purse as he walks into her room, notably without bothering to knock. He seems to have no concept of privacy.

“Your share of the spoils. If you’ve any shopping to do, you should do so now. We’ve gotten some reports of a summoner nearby. Finish up your business and meet me at the gates.”

Well. Altano has never seemed the kind of man for small talk.

Eres watches him leave, then dresses herself and gathers her things. On her way downstairs, she hails the somewhat skittish servant – the Redguard woman whose name she hasn’t bothered to learn. “Has there been an Imperial courier in town recently?”

“I just serve the patrons,” the woman says. “If anyone would know, it’s Hulda. You should ask her,” and she points at the woman behind the bar counter, then very quickly makes herself scarce.

Strange. Why is this servant so jumpy?

Eres shakes her head at the woman’s strange behavior and heads for the woman at the bar.

“I’m looking for an Imperial courier.”

“Hmm,” Hulda looks at her queerly. “And what business have you with the Imperials?” Hulda gives her no time to answer, shrugging off any reason she may have come up with. “There’s been a regiment stationed here for quite some time. You can usually find them arguing with Adrianne up at Warmaiden’s over some order or another.”

Eres thanks the woman for her information, and makes her way out of the inn. Warmaiden’s is on her way to the gates, anyhow, and Altano doesn’t strike her as an especially patient man.

At Warmaiden’s, she finds the Imperial soldier just where Hulda said he’d be – arguing with the blacksmith about some order of Imperial steel or another. She waits until they’re done arguing to ask him of the courier, and he points her to a man in lighter armor lounging by the gates.

“Hello,” she greets this man, who looks up at her as if he’s surprised to be addressed. By the looks of him, she can tell he’s a runner – lean and light on his feet. He doesn’t seem to be especially busy. “You’re the courier?”

“I am, mum,” he replies, and stands. He’s taller than her by only a few inches. He is not an attractive man, but there is a certain homeliness about him that sets her at ease. “Something I can help you with?”

“I’d like to send a package. You wouldn’t be heading towards Falkreath, are you?”

The man’s eyes raise skyward as he considers it. “I might be,” he says. “I could be, for a fee. You need something delivered? You know there’s cheaper couriers,” and he looks over her hand-me-down robes.

“I do, but I trust your service to get my missive where it needs to go.” She says pointedly. He nods, his lips pursing. Good, he understands. “I’d like this delivered to Fellburg – do you know of it?”

“Haven’t heard of it, miss,” he admits.

She points it to him on her own map, tracing her fingers a path for him west from Whiterun, and then south towards Falkreath, only to curl further west around a mountain pass and back north. “This is the quickest way you might go that won’t be too dangerous. You can take the road straight west there, as well, but there’s Forsworn camping in the old fort there.”

He grimaces, and seems to be familiar with the area. “I’ve not seen any town there before.”

“It’s new,” she tells him, and then she hands him a small leather satchel. Inside, she’s enclosed about three-quarters of the pay Altano had given her, as well as a letter instructing Yosef and Johanna what they might do with it. She’s made sure to place a tiny little glamour spell upon the purse – if this courier decides to look inside, he’ll see nothing but a small collection of copper septims, hardly worth stealing.

The glamour, unfortunately, only works within the bag itself. If the courier decides to upend the purse, or take the coins out of it elsewise, the glamour will be ineffective as soon as the coins leave the bag. For now, though, this is all she can manage – especially with the looming threat of some insane summoner on the horizon.

“I trust you can manage to deliver this intact?”

“Of course,” the man actually looks vaguely affronted. “I’m no Imperial courier for nothin’, Miss. It’ll be delivered safe so long as I live long enough to do it.”

A bit morbid, but it’ll do. “What’s your name, Courier?”

“I’m Brant, missus…?”

“Eres.” She hands him a single gold septim. “If the package is delivered safely, they’ve been instructed to tip you generously.”

He eyes her warily. “What’s the catch?” He asks, though she notes that he wastes no time in pocketing the coin.

“Nothing, so long as you do your job. I reward my friends well.”

He smiles, then. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She bids him farewell, and hopes that he is a man of his word. If not, she’s lost a fair amount of coin.

“Have family back home, do you?” Altano asks as she approaches him. She’s not surprised that he’d been watching the exchange.

“Something like that.”

“Hope they’re well.” Altano turns, and begins walking through the open gates of Whiterun. “The summoner was spotted nearby, trying to summon a Daedra. There’s an old farmhouse on the road not far from here—we might just be able to catch up with her.”

And that’s all the warning she gets before he takes off running.

“I had hoped we might catch her.” Altano sighs, crouching, running his fingers through the fine, sulfuric dust upon the ground.

Mixed with the scent of the blackened, burned wood of the small home, Eres lifts her scarf and tightens it around her nose and mouth. Between the smell of sulfur and the embers still burning in the corner of the home, her eyes are starting to water.

“Could one Daedra really do all this?” She wonders.

“You’d be surprised how much damage one Daedra can do.” Altano brings his fingers to his nose, and sniffs. She grimaces behind her mask at the sight. “The ashes are still warm. Whatever she summoned here was still here not so long ago.”

“The guard managed to kill it?” Eres looks over her shoulder, at the hunched, shadowed figures walking slowly towards the watchtower. She’d seen a couple of guards milling about as they approached, but once they’d come into view, the guards had quickly scattered and gone their own way.

“Seems that way. But not without a few casualties…” Altano sweeps his gaze across what must have once been a living room.

Eres follows his gaze. Upon the ruins of the bed in the corner is a blackened, charred corpse. One of the legs is either missing, or turned to soot – Eres can’t tell from this distance, but she isn’t too keen on getting closer to find out. In the complete opposite corner, near the fireplace, is the corpse of a guard in only marginally better shape – his front is the same blackened, charred mess as the man in the bed, but his back side is unaffected. Still, he lays crumpled and stiff against the wall, like he was thrown into it.

“It’s like a fireball was thrown in here.”

Eres, as convenient as using magic is in her day to day life, has often not found much excuse to use it during battle. She’s never had the same rigid, pinpoint focus as other mages that can call up spells within the chaos of battle – she can, under the right circumstances, but it doesn’t come easy for her. Practical magic has always come more easily to her than battle magic.

But, if she had to imagine what the aftereffect of a fireball in closed quarters were to be like, this would be it.

“Effects of the summoning,” Altano replies. “When they’re called forth from Oblivion, it creates a split-second dimensional rift. When they step through that rift and the rift closes behind them, the result is a small explosion like this. These men were likely caught in the blast. It’s only one of many reasons why summoning Daedra is so dangerous. More than one cocky mage has gotten themselves blown up trying to summon one of those things.”

“Is that what happened to the summoner?”

“Doubtful,” Altano stands, and claps his hands together to rid them of the fine white dust. “A blast this big had to be one of the more powerful Daedra. And those guards we saw – at least a few of them were injured, too. It had to have been a strong one. Any summoner good enough to summon a higher level Daedra wouldn’t make the novice mistake of being within the conjuration radius. She must have summoned it as a distraction, to keep us occupied – and then got herself a good head start.”

Eres sighs. Chasing ghosts, indeed. Were the Vigilants only good at coming _after_ a disaster of this sort? It had taken five men’s deaths for the Vigilants to be called to Whiterun for that vampire, and now this?

Eres’ brow furrows. What were the chances of a newly born vampire _and_ a high level Daedra being summoned not even a mile apart from each other? Could it be possible that the two events were connected somehow? Perhaps the summoner was a vampire? Or perhaps the vampire had merely been another distraction, to stave off anyone who might get close to the summoner until they’d had the chance to pull off this summoning—

But she still couldn’t think of a reason. What purpose did summoning a Daedra here serve, apart from merely causing chaos? There had to be some kind of reason.

“Where do you think she went?”

“The guards said they saw something headed off North just after the summoning, but none of them are sure on what they saw. I’ll speak to the witnesses. Why don’t you return to the Priest and let him know he’s got a few more bodies headed his way?”

Eres glances back up the road towards Whiterun, and the hill approaching it, and huffs. “Fine.”

The Priest doesn’t seem surprised to see her.

“Where Vigilants tread, death soon follows,” he intones gravely. “You are as good as any omen.”

How cheerful.

Eres leaves him to his duties, and returns again down the hill, across the little bridge, through the outdoor market, and back to the burnt lot that once housed a quaint farmhouse.

She finds Altano waiting for her, leaning against a barrel that had somehow escaped the carnage within the house, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Took you long enough.”

“It’s not a short walk.” Her feet hurt. Whiterun could do with a street cleaner. Or perhaps she’s just gone soft after spending so long surviving off the land near Fellburg, where the roads weren’t paved and even the outside of the Keep was still little more than packed dirt.

“Did you find anything out about the summoner?”

“I think she may be headed towards Windhelm. North of here, there’s only Dawnstar and Morthal through that pass,” Altano turns, walks a bit away from the house, and points far into the distance where a range of mountains disappear into the clouds above. It looks cold and dreary and just about the last place Eres wants to go. “And neither of those towns have much to see. If she’s looking for a place she might make an impact, the best bet would be Windhelm.”

“Isn’t that the Stormcloaks’ capital?”

Altano glances at her, and does not hide the shrewd look he aims towards the pointed tips of her ears. “It is,” he says slowly. “Most of Skyrim won’t interfere with Vigilant business, but,” he sighs. “The Stormcloaks have been getting more… rash, as of late.”

Well, that’s one way of saying ‘racist’, but she doesn’t bother to correct him.

“I’d keep your hood up while we’re there.” He doesn’t have to tell her twice. “There should be a carriage we can catch at the stables. It’ll be faster than travelling on foot.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just take a horse?”

“Do you have five thousand septims to spare for each of us?” Altano retorts, raising his brows.

“Point,” she concedes. She doesn’t. Even if she did, she certainly wouldn’t be spending it on him. “Carriage it is.”


	4. Chapter 4

ACT II  
CHAPTER IV

When one hears that a Daedra has been summoned in the middle of an inn, it is logical to expect to walk in to absolute chaos and disaster. But if Eres had expected the Candlehearth Hall to look anything like the poor, charred farmhouse at Whiterun, she’s sorely disappointed.

Instead, the Hall seems largely untouched. There are patrons drinking at the bar counter. From upstairs, Eres can hear the muffled voices of several more speaking in low tones above, and even the soft, whimsical notes of a bard playing a song upon a lute, or some such string instrument. There is the crackle of the fire and the low bubbling sound of a simmering stew in the kitchen, and the casual humming of a servant as she works the floor.

The only sign that anything at all is amiss is the exasperated woman behind the counter.

“That woman summoned the damn thing and now it refuses to leave! You’d better be here to get rid of it! That thing’s disturbing my customers!”

The customers don’t look very disturbed. One of them, a drunken woman in steel armor, even offers to brawl with the Daedra in the back room, even making to stand to do just that. Unfortunately for Eres, the woman makes it not two steps before she stumbles over her own feet and crashes headlong over another barstool.

She doesn’t look like she’s going to get up any time soon, even as much as she continues slurring about her prowess in battle and how no one’s _ever_ beat her in a fist fight.

“Right…” Altano steps out of the way when the woman flings her legs in an attempt to get up.

The woman manages to roll over after several attempts, pukes, and then, seemingly, falls asleep. Eres’ nose wrinkles in disgust.

“Where is this Daedra?”

“Back room on the left,” the innkeeper points. She doesn’t seem remotely bothered by the woman passed out in front of her bar, and in fact hadn’t given her even a second glance.

Eres supposes, with a Daedra hiding out in one of your rooms, a drunken patron passed out on your floor was low on the list of priorities.

“Take care of that Daedra ,would you?” Altano asks her. “I’m going to see what the patrons may have seen of this summoner.”

Funny how he always manages to find a way to foist the hard part off on her.

With a roll of her eyes at his back, she trudges towards the back room, pulling out the short silver sword. Within close confines like this, her bow would be near useless at such tight range, and god forbid she use her magic and blow a hole in the roof or something.

She wasn’t especially skilled with a blade, however. She would just have to hope this was a lesser Daedra—and, given how little concern the patrons of the inn seemed to have for its presence, she would bet good coin that it was.

Whatever she had expected to see when she walked into that room, a Daedra sprawled out on the floor, snoring, is not it.

For a moment, she just stares at it, stunned speechless.

She almost feels bad for having to kill it.

“Hey.” Eres kicks the leg closest to her. It only barely budges, and the Daedra lets out a displeased groan. “Get up.”

She doesn’t feel right just…executing the thing while it’s sleeping. Even if it _is_ a Daedra.

“Five more minutes…”

She kicks him again. “Get up before I cut your dick off.”

The Daedra merely waves a hand dismissively, as if giving her permission.

Eres looks at the ceiling, and wonders how she found herself in this position. She could have spent the rest of her life in Cyrodiil. Maybe been married off to some asshat. Spent her days reading and gossiping with old women.

Instead of standing in the back room of an inn, staring at the armored body of a Daedra who’s too lazy to even be terrifying.

Eres hears a high pitched whine, then, and for a moment she can’t remember the source of it – until she feels the distinct signature of a humming magical energy within one of her pouches. The enchanted parchment has been activated.

Yosef and Johanna must have received her package.

Almost absently, Eres steps a bit closer to the Daedra and runs the point of her sword through the gap in his armor between his collarbone and neck. It make no noise when it dies, only the soft _shhhh_ of its body disintegrating into fine, sulfuric ash.

She wrinkles her nose at the smell. Even if she fought a hundred Daedra, she doesn’t think she’d ever get used to that.

Altano enters, with seemingly magical timing. “Took care of him, I see.”

No thanks to you, she almost says, but given that she’d essentially killed the thing in its sleep with negative effort, she doesn’t feel it’s worth complaining about. Even if it would please her to irritate him. “I don’t think he was much of a threat.”

“That could be the last mistake you ever make,” Altano says gravely. “Don’t ever underestimate them. Even the docile ones.”

_Yes, Father_ , she wants to mutter, reminded of her own father and the way he’d scold her in the same tone. She wasn’t a child.

“What now?”

“Now? We rest. A storm’s kicking up. We won’t be getting anywhere tonight. But the innkeeper did mention a rumor of something unsettling nearby. I don’t know if it’s related to the summoner or not, but you should check it out in the morning.”

“ _I_ should check it out in the morning?”

“Yes, you,” he raises his brows. “Unless you know of another Novice around here looking for work.”

“And what will you be doing?”

“Hunting down our summoner, of course,” Altano replies.

_You mean being a lazy cunt,_ she thinks, but doesn’t vocalize. “Of course,” she manages, at her most dry.

“There’s rumor of a man in Kynesgrove who can drive a man mad just by looking at them. It might be a relic by the name of the Eye of Madness – approach him carefully. If it’s what I think it is, you won’t want to be caught off guard with him. Find out the truth behind this rumor and report back to me once you know what’s going on.”

“Alright,” she nods at him to satisfy his need to feel authoritative, and waits for him to leave. She can hear him making his way upstairs to speak with the patrons, but Eres has more pressing matters to attend to than eavesdropping on her—senior officer. Or whatever Elite Vigilants were called.

When she’s certain he’s made himself scarce, Eres goes to the keeper to arrange for a room for the night—decidedly _not_ the one she’d just killed the Daedra in—and orders a meal to be brought to her rooms.

Only after the servant has delivered it to her and closed the door behind her does Eres remove the enchanted parchment from her satchel.

Upon first look, there is nothing particularly notable about it. Merely a foot in length, rolled tightly and tied shut with a length of twine, there is no indication on the outside that the parchment is anything other than a typical scroll. Even when she unfurls it, the parchment is decidedly blank and unremarkable.

With a press of her hand to the surface, she allows just the hint of her magicka to seep out through her fingers and into the parchment. There is a feeling of subtle heat beneath her hand, and with the seal activated, she removes it.

Words appear scrawled upon the page as if written by an invisible hand.

_“Eres,”_ it begins. _“This is Johanna…”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 12/31 - Small inconsistency with Julia's age.

ACT II  
CHAPTER V

“Julia, don’t touch that!”

Yosef holds back a snort at the stunned look on his daughter’s face. Johanna hadn’t even been looking at her. Those maternal senses of hers were unmatchable.

“I just wanted to see what it does…”

“What did I tell you about messing with Eres’…” Johanna turns, peering around the small room, and makes a face. “Things?”

Yosef looks, too, and can’t blame her. He hasn’t the faintest clue what anything in this room is for, aside from the small bed. He’d have felt guilty about even entering the room, had the door not been left open. If Eres had wanted them to stay away, surely she would have locked the door?

Still, he can’t help but feel like at least half of the things in this room could probably kill him. Or all of them. Too many glowy things. Too many magical things. Too many things that a farm boy like himself has no business messing with.

“Sorry, Mum.” Johanna huffs, but she moves to go sit on the bed. “When can we go back downstairs?”

“When those men leave,” Yosef answers. He pats his daughter’s shoulder as he stands to join Johanna at the window. “Are they still there?”

“They haven’t left,” Johanna murmurs, her voice lower so as not to be heard by Julia.

The solitary window in this tower room is of stained glass, and near impossible to see through from the outside, Yosef knows, but looking outside from within poses little issue, if only warping the colors a bit. Through it, Yosef follows Johanna’s gaze to the land below – where a group of unpleasant looking men are milling about. One of them has kicked over the cookpot.

“What are they doing here?”

“Looks like bandits,” Yosef mutters. “They’re probably looking for a way in.”

Johanna gives him a look of barely muted alarm. “Do you think they can?”

“Eres showed me how to seal the door before she left.” Yosef tells her quietly. He leans close, and turns his face towards hers so that Julia can’t see the expression on his face. For a twelve-year-old, the girl is annoyingly perceptive. She always seems to sense when something is wrong. He doesn’t want to scare her.

“It won’t keep ‘em out if they break through it, but it’ll hurt them enough that they might think twice about coming inside.”

“Are there any traps inside?”

Yosef shakes his head. “Not that I know of. But it wasn’t easy to get up here. Maybe they won’t find the passage.”

Johanna’s lips purse, telling him exactly she thinks of _that_. “We have to make them go away somehow. We can’t just lock ourselves in this tower until they get bored of us.”

“They might not even know we’re here,” Yosef tries, but even he doesn’t necessarily believe that. The exterior of the Keep isn’t especially appealing, even to desperate bandits. If these men are still here after a full day, it’s likely they believe there’s something worth their time inside.

Like valuables. Or a beautiful woman.

Yosef’s hand clenches into a fist. He’s no fighter, but he’ll go down swinging if they try to lay a hand on her.

“What about the letter?”

Yosef blinks, turning his head to look at his daughter.

The little blonde girl sits casually upon the little bed, swinging her feet.

“The letter?” Johanna asks.

“You could write Eres,” Julia tells them. “She said I could send her a message if I’m feeling lonely. Maybe we can ask her to come back and make them go away.”

Yosef turns to look at his wife, and finds his own surprise mirrored in her eyes. How had they forgotten that Eres had given them a way to contact her?

“Where’s the parchment?” Yosef asks.

“Downstairs,” Johanna tightens her hold on little Neil in her arms. “I left it on the desk in the study.”

“I’ll go down and get it.” Yosef heads for the door. He doesn’t know what these men want, but maybe Eres could find a way to help them – wherever she was.

“Yosef,” Johanna hisses, and grasps at his arm. “The study has floor length windows! They’ll see you!”

“Not if I’m careful,” Yosef presses his hands to either side of her face, brushing his thumbs across her freckled cheeks. He tries to reassure her with a smile, ducking in to peck at her lips, and then again to kiss the top of his son’s head. “You know how much of a mess the study is. I can hide behind the stacks and reach the desk. And then I’ll be back here before you know it.”

“Yosef—“ Johanna starts, but then Julia stands.

“I could go,” Julia offers. “I’m really small,” she says, and on her face is a level of determination and seriousness that shouldn’t exist in a child of her age. “They won’t see me.”

“ _Absolutely_ not!”

Yosef slaps his hand over Johanna’s mouth, hushing her. “It’s either me or her, love,” he says, and when her eyes narrow into a fiery glare, he gives her the same lopsided, boyish grin she’d fallen in love with. “I promise, it’ll be in and out. It’ll only take me a few minutes, and then we can send word to Eres. Maybe she can send some guards our way.”

“Or a big fireball!” Julia adds.

Yosef tilts his head, and raises his eyebrows, as if to say, ‘See? She gets it.’

Behind his hand, he feels Johanna let out a long, defeated sigh.

“ _Fine_ ,” she grouses. “If you’re not back here in ten minutes, I’ll kill you myself.”

He grins at her. “I’ll make it five,” he promises. He bends down to kiss little Julia on the top of her head, too, and then slinks out of the small, narrow door that leads into the tower room.

Only when he shuts the door behind him does he allow his fear to show. Dread curls into his chest and it feels like his stomach is sinking through his feet.

Gods. There’s bandits outside. With swords, and bows, and who knew what else, and his wife and kids are here and he can’t do anything to protect them – nothing! Why hadn’t he ever learned how to fight? Why hadn’t he ever asked Eres to teach him something? She seemed to know her way around!

He’d been so _stupid_ , thinking they were safe just because they had four walls around them again. He’d let his guard down, and now look what he had to show for it. His family was holed up in some—some mage tower in a part of the Keep they’d practically had to _crawl_ to get into, and all the food stores are downstairs, and how long could they possibly last if they were stuck in there until the bandits lost interest?

Or worse, until they _made it in_.

He’d stand no chance against the lot of them. And then they’d have their way with Johanna. And they’d kill little Neil, and maybe Julia too, and—

Yosef feels panic rising in his chest, and takes a deep breath. One. Two. Three.

He counts to ten, breathing deep. He had to do this. His family is depending on him. He can’t let them down. And Eres—Eres, who’d given them this chance. Eres, who’d given them an opportunity he’d have never found somewhere else. He’d be letting her down, too, if he let those bandits ransack her home.

Yosef bends his knees, keeping his head low, and starts making his way down through the tight, dilapidated corridors that will lead him to down below – and to the study, where their only chance at salvation lies.

It’s strange, how a place so familiar to him can feel so different when the situation has changed. The homely, cozy warmth of the Keep’s interior that he had called home for these past few months feels somehow suffocating when smothered in darkness and creeping from hallway to hallway, ducking between shadows and darting past open doorways.

Even while he slinks his way towards the study – which, of course, was on the complete opposite side of the Keep from the narrow, dilapidated spiraling staircase that had led them to relative safety within the mage tower – he finds himself grateful that he’d been too busy with building the farm up these past few months to bother with starting on building the homestead he’d dreamed of living in.

Would they have had any chance, were they all living in some half-finished homestead on the farmlands? The bandits would have had any number of ways to get at them. Breaking down the door. Setting torches to the foundations. Shooting arrows through the windows.

The Keep, for all its ragged appearances, is still a near fortress from the outside looking in. Quarried stone and heavy, oaken doors treated with the kind of special polish that resisted the flames of those who might try to burn them down. Braced with metal brackets to keep rams from running them through. The few windows in the Keep – even the floor-length windows in the study that faced the front approach – were braced with the same metal bars, and made of thick, reinforced tempered glass.

Yosef supposed they _could_ be broken, with some significant force, but so far the bandits had not bothered to try it. He hopes they continue to believe it isn’t worth the effort.

Whatever they’re here for, they’re not interested in a bunch of old dusty books and maps.

 _Sorry, Johanna,_ Yosef thinks, peering into the study. The floor-length windows are indeed facing the front approach, and he can see the bandits just beyond them. He waits several tense moments for them to look away, then darts behind one of the bookcases, half crouched over.

He hadn’t thought they’d be that close. With having to watch for them to ensure he’s not spotted, it’s going to take a lot longer than his promised five minutes.

While the bandits are distracted, he ducks behind the next bookcase, crawls past a dangerously unstable stack of books—and then curses and doubles back to rest behind the stack on his knees, his back hunched and his head low.

The desk faces the inner wall of the study – and Eres had situated it so that the daylight streaming in through the windows would illuminate it. While this made for an easier time in that she didn’t have to work by candlelight in the daytime, it also meant that there was nothing blocking the view of the desk from the window on the opposite wall.

If he isn’t careful, they’ll see him. And maybe they’ll decide it _is_ worth trying to break through those windows to get at him.

Yosef curses again under his breath. He risks popping the very top of his head over the stacks of books just barely hiding his lanky form – peering out the window at the figures outside.

One of them is turned towards the window and pointing angrily, his mouth opening wide as he speaks, as though he might be shouting – and even from here, Yosef can see his eyes flashing with anger.

His heart wrenches in his chest. Has he been seen? Had this man seen him, and now he was telling his little bandit friends, arguing for them to break in?

But Yosef waits, even as he feels cold sweat begin to form at the back of his neck.

The bandit facing the window turns, gesturing wildly with his arms about the camp they’ve ransacked just outside the front approach of the Keep. The other men wave their hands dismissively at him, shooing off whatever concerns he might be raising. The first man throws his hands in the air and turns away completely, moving to shove at one of the other men.

Yosef takes a breath. This is his chance. He darts across the short few feet between the stack of books and the desk, half-crouched, and thanks all the Divines that the parchment Eres had left them is laid out upon its top, in the open. He snatches it and a quill, looking over his shoulder, and darts back to the shadows.

With the parchment and quill in hand, he makes his way ever so slowly back out of the study.

Though his heart has not stopped racing since he had left Johanna in the tower, he feels it calm ever so slightly when he reaches the comfortable shadow of the halls outside of the study.

“That wasn’t so hard,” he whispers to himself, and allows himself just the briefest of nervous smiles.

He makes his way back towards the narrow passageway that will take him back to the tower – and, feeling brave, he even takes a short detour for the kitchen, where he grabs a stale loaf of bread that Johanna had set out the day before, and a singular lemon.

When he finds himself back at the tower door, knocking softly upon its surface, he can scarcely believe what he’s managed.

He’d done it.

Granted, it wasn’t like he’d fought them. He’d essentially played a high level game of hide and seek. But he’d _done it_. He hadn’t let his fear control him. He’d pushed it aside for his family, and now they’d be able to contact Eres, and Eres would be able to send help. Or maybe she’d even come back herself, and they could have a good old laugh about how brave Yosef felt just because he’d slunk through some dark hallways while a bunch of bandits argued amongst themselves.

“It’s me!” He whispers fiercely at the door, when it doesn’t immediately open. There’s no peephole or window to speak of, so he supposes there’s no way to confirm that it’s _him_ on the other side, and not someone else. “Johanna, open the door!”

The door swings open so violently he rocks back on his heels in surprise, blinking.

Johanna’s fierce face springs into view only a moment before her hand grabs a fistful of his loose tunic, and yanks.

He stumbles inside, she slams the door behind him, and then she slams _him_ against the door with her hand still fisted in his collar.

“ _Bread?_ ” She hisses. And her free hand reaches up to whack him over the head. “You had me thinking you _died_ and all because you wanted some _bread_?!”

“Johanna,” if he’d had a free hand, he might have reached up to rub at the side of his head. As it was, he could do nothing but try to placate her with his arms full. “I had to get the lemon! And Julia’s hungry!”

“I’m not _that_ hungry,” Julia says, and he shoots her a severe look. Girls! They always stick together. He can’t wait for Neil to be old enough for him to have some back up sometime.

“Lemon?” Johanna looks like she might want to yell at him again, and he winces—but then she blinks, and he sees comprehension dawn in her eyes. “The lemon! Yosef, you brilliant, _brilliant_ man!”

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him on the lips, grinning. “I knew I married you for a reason!”

And he’d married her for many, many reasons. That her moods could sometimes make him a bit dizzy might have scared other men away, but Yosef has always thought a predictable woman was a boring one. Johanna kept him on his toes.

Johanna made him strong.

“Fancy writing a letter, love?” 

_“Eres,_

_This is Johanna. I am sorry to write you so suddenly, and with such urgency, but we are in need of your aid. Yesterday, a group of men approached the Keep, armed to the teeth. There are at least a dozen by our count. We have taken refuge within the spire. I am sorry if it was meant to be private, but it is the only place we could think of to hide from them that is not easily accessible. We have already passed a day and half waiting for them to leave. Yosef sealed the door as you taught him, and they seem to be cautious of trying to break through it – but we cannot remain within the tower forever._

_“Wherever you are, Eres, I hope you are close. We cannot fight them on our own.”_

Eres’ blood runs hot in her veins, until the sound of her own heartbeat pounds so loudly within her skull that she can hear little else. Heat licks at her fingertips. She clenches her hands together and presses at the soft points between her fingers until it hurts just enough that the feeling dulls, receding; until her fury is directed inward and not at everything that surrounds her.

She’d left them defenseless. _She_ had done that. She’d known that the activity around the Keep would eventually attract bandits – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time such unscrupulous types pounced upon the opportunity to build a base within a fortified structure, so that they might better prey on those who crossed their paths. The Keep, like many of the abandoned ruins in Skyrim, would serve as a beacon to any who might wish to take advantage of its defenses.

What little it had.

The problem with a Keep, a fortress, a castle – any such structure that one might use to hole up in – was that they were vulnerable to siege.

Military history had not been her favorite subject, for all the emphasis that her tutors had placed upon it. She had read more than one account of successful Imperial sieges, wherein they merely surrounded such a fort as the Keep until those within could no longer hope to survive within it without aid. Cutting off their supply, trapping them within their own homes, starving them out…

Bandits, of course, are a far cry from a battalion of seasoned soldiers, but when the sole occupants of a fortress are naught but a farm boy, his wife, and two young children, you need not have an army to stage a proper siege.

And, she was sure, the bandits knew this, also.

Eres _also_ knew the layout of her home better than any. She knew that if they’d trapped themselves within the tower – which was already a perilous climb on its own – they would not be able to reach the kitchens, and the store rooms easily. If they’d managed to bring any sustenance into the tower at all, it would not be long until it ran out.

And then they would starve – or they would be forced to surrender.

Yosef was a fit man, in his prime. He would be easy money for any bandit that might decide slavery was not beneath him. Johanna was a beautiful woman – and one needed little imagination to guess what a group of unsavory young men might do with a woman like that. Julia and Neil might be discarded entirely, or—Eres could think of much, much worse.

But what could she do from here? She could—she could run. She could leave, maybe catch a carriage, or steal a horse, and she could go to them and kill those bandits and, maybe, somehow, she could come up with some kind of spell or illusion to hide them from future—

No. _No_. Eres drops her head into her hands. What would that solve? Yosef and Johanna had no skill with magic. She wouldn’t be able to maintain the spell from a distance, and if she had the coin for enough soul gems to maintain an illusion of that magnitude, she wouldn’t have had to leave Fellburg in the first place. And traps? Runes? What would happen if Julia or little Neil stumbled upon one, or Yosef or Johanna forgot one was there?

She could return, and handle the problem, but then—what would she do for coin? She’s certain Altano wouldn’t take lightly to her deserting him in the middle of the night, unannounced. Where else might she find steady work that paid well enough to support Fellburg? The _guard_? The _Companions_?

Eres’ hands fist into her hair and pulls. Her breath feels like it stutters in her chest, her heart pounding at her ribcage. Every inch of her body feels uncomfortably hot and her thoughts race almost too fast for her to even understand them herself.

She pulls just the slightest bit harder, until the pain at her scalp allows her mind to clear. She takes a single breath. She cannot go back. It’s not _practical_ in the long run, as much as she wishes to. If she goes back now, they will only be right back where they started – if not worse. She must find another way.

There has to be another way to help them from here. Something else that she can do, someone else she can send to help them… 

Eres jumps out of her chair and throws open the door to her room, bolting down the hall and up the stairs, ignoring the innkeeper who shouts at her to stop being so rowdy, and up to the second level where she knows Altano sits.

“I need an advance.”

Altano’s hand, holding a mug of ale, pauses inches from his lips. “An advance?” He asks.

“I’ve killed that Daedra. I need my pay. Now.”

He lowers his cup, and stares stolidly back at her. She does not miss the cold, calculating look in his eyes – but right now, she can’t bring herself to care what he might be thinking.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“My pay, Altano,” she repeats, and she thrusts out her hand.

“What has you so frantic?” Altano asks, leaning back in his seat. He, infuriatingly, makes no move to reach for his purse. She’s tempted to rip it off him. “That desperate for more refreshment, are you?”

“There is something I need to handle, and I need coin to do it.”

“I just paid you three days ago, you know. Perhaps you shouldn’t have blown through it so quickly.”

She steps closer to him. With him in his seat, she towers over him. “My _pay_ , Altano. I won’t ask again.”

His lips curl into a lazy smirk. He takes a slow drink of his ale. With practiced, languid movements, he reaches for his purse.

“I suppose we _can_ consider this an advance…” Altano says slowly, watching her coolly. He opens his purse, and starts to count the septims he means to give her – one by one. “I hadn’t meant to pay you again so soon, until you proved yourself a bit more. That Daedra was hardly even worth the effort of coming out here, after all…” He trails off, and after reaching a grand total of ten gold septims within his hand, he pauses. “You owe me a favor, Novice.”

She thrusts her hand out again. “My pay.” She repeats, and curls her fingers in a beckoning gesture.

He starts to reach out for her hand, then stops, and holds her gaze, his eyes dark with intent.

“A favor, Novice.”

She glares at him. “ _Fine_ ,” she snaps back. “A favor.”

His lips stretch into a smug, satisfied smile, and he turns his hand over and drops the coins into her outstretched palm. “A pleasure doing business with you.”

She scoffs at him in disgust, spinning on her heel. With the coins in hand, she marches straight back down the stairs, to the bar, and to the innkeeper.

“I need a mercenary.”

“You need a what now?” The innkeeper blinks at her, seemingly taken aback by her abruptness.

“A _mercenary_. I assume you know what one is.”

The innkeeper’s eyes narrow. “Don’t get smart with me, _elf_. You’re the one asking for my help.”

Eres takes a steadying breath. The coins in her hand feel hot against her palm. “I need a mercenary. _Please_. Someone reputable.”

The innkeeper eyes her a moment, then jerks her head just to Eres’ right. “She’s a mercenary. A good one.” A pause. “When she’s sober, anyways.”

Eres turns her head to look, and barely restrains a disgusted groan. The woman sitting at the barstool is the same woman she’d seen pass out in her own sick earlier in the night.

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’m not.” The innkeeper shrugs, but seems to take pity on her. “She’s a damn good mercenary, but she ain’t had much work since the war started.” When Eres raises a brow, she continues, “She spoke out against the Stormcloaks. Nobody will hire her now.”

“Well, I will,” _reluctantly_ , she adds internally. But, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers.

She reaches over, and hauls the woman up by the collar of her armor. The woman blinks blearily at her, pulling her head back to look at her properly.

“Wuzzat? You wanna fight?”

“No, I want to hire you to fight.”

To her credit, Eres must admit, the woman’s eyes clear quickly – whether out of pure shock or the promise of coin to be made, she’s unsure. “Y’wanna hire me?” The woman blinks again, makes a face, and shakes her head clear. “For what?”

“I’ve heard you’re a capable mercenary, for all you don’t look it.”

The woman clears her throat suddenly, blinks a few times in rapid succession, and straightens. At her full height, she is at least a full hand’s length taller than Eres herself.

Feeling a bit awkward despite herself, Eres releases her hold on the woman’s collar.

“I have a situation I need handled, and I need it done quickly. I’ll pay you double for expediency.”

“You don’t even know my fee.”

Indeed, the woman’s ability to sober up so quickly was actually a bit impressive. Though that is also probably a testament to just how often the woman is drunk off her ass.

“From what I’ve heard, you’ve got little room to complain.” The woman scowls back at her, but doesn’t protest. “Have you ever been down near Falkreath?”

The woman frowns. “That’s a long way.”

“I’m aware,” Eres drawls. “That’s why I need you. I can’t leave as I have other responsibilities here, but _you_ can. I need you to ride for Fellburg,” and she hastily brings out her map, and points to where she has marked it. “Here.”

The woman whistles low in her mouth. “That’s a two day ride, at least,” she says, “and that’s riding hard.” Her tone has slipped from the slurred mess it had been when Eres approached her to something almost resembling business-like.

“I trust you can handle it,” Eres replies, dry. “A group of bandits have decided they’d like to siege my family home. I’ve just gotten word. I need you to kill them, and check on the people inside. You’ll get half your pay now,” she says, and she opens her hand to show all of the coins Altano had given to her. By the way the woman tries to hide her reaction, she can tell it’s more than the woman had expected. “And half your pay when you’ve dealt with them. I will send a missive with you, addressed to a man there named Yosef. _If_ you complete your mission, that man will be instructed to compensate you on top of what I give you now.”

The woman’s eyes narrow. “That’s a lot of money for some bandits. What’s the catch?”

“The catch is, you don’t ask stupid questions. Handle the bandits. Ensure the occupants are alive. Yosef will pay you. Job done.” Eres considers it a moment. “And, if you can manage to keep yourself from drowning in a bottle, I might even have future work for you that you won’t find here in Windhelm.”

“And what’s that?”

“Guarding my estate,” Eres answers. “You would receive a weekly salary. Better than what you might find here, I’d expect.”

“I’m no guard,” the woman grouses. “Boring work. But I’ll take care of your bandits.” She holds out her hand.

Eres presses the coins into her hand, and just for good measure, she grasps that hand in her own and allows the heat still boiling in her veins to creep out as she leans closer and lowers her voice.

“If you cross me, I will kill you.” She whispers, holding the woman’s gaze so that she knows just how serious Eres is. “I will find you, and I will kill you. If I find that you allowed any harm to come to those within my estate, I will find you, and I will return that harm to you thrice over. If you cross me, Mercenary,” and she allows that anger to feed the heat within her, and the heat between their palms, until the coins pressed against their skin are uncomfortably hot, until she feels the mercenary’s hand trying to pull away from the heat. “I will make certain that you regret it.”

The woman stares at her, her face ashen.

“Do we understand each other?”

The mercenary swallows, and then nods.

“Good.” Eres pulls the heat back inside, and releases the woman’s hand. “You will be handsomely rewarded, should you complete this job in a satisfactory manner. Remember – Yosef is his name. Tell him that Eres has sent you. He will know.”

The woman nods hastily, but remains.

Eres raises her brows, and gestures for the door. “That means, _go_.”

She scampers out, the door slamming behind her.

Eres stares after her, a deep frown pulling at her lips.

She doesn’t trust that woman. But if she returns to Fellburg now—it will only be exchanging one problem for another. She would have to leave again far too soon, and then they would be left unguarded again, and the next bandits may not be so cautious.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a figure, draped in shadow. When her head turns, there is Altano, watching her from the stairwell, his mask raised and his eyes sharp. Altano’s eyes crinkle at the corners. She doesn’t need to see his face to know that he is smiling at her.


	6. Chapter 6

ACT II  
CHAPTER VI

Though Eres knows it will be days before she hears of anything from Fellburg, her ears remain trained for that signature, high-pitched whistle all the same. She makes her way for Kynesgrove with not some small amount of trepidation in her step. More than once she mistakes the whistle of the howling wind as the alarm from her parchment.

By the time she reaches Kynesgrove, sometime around midday, Eres feels the fool for more reasons than one.

It was not only that she found herself reaching into her pouch, removing the parchment in the hopes of receiving another message when only hours had passed since the mercenary’s departure, _knowing_ that it was at least two days ride from Windhelm to Fellburg.

It was not only even that she had entrusted this task to a drunkard mercenary whose character she could not vouch for, in the heat of the moment where she could not waste time properly vetting her hireling, despite what the innkeeper might have said.

What made her feel most foolish was that she had walked herself right into the same debts her father had often found himself in, and with a man she did not trust any further than she could throw him.

Hell, she might actually trust the mercenary more.

What favor might Altano ask of her in the future? What trap had she stumbled into?

Not for the first time, Eres wonders what she has gotten herself into—joining the Vigilants on a whim as she had. Perhaps it would have been better if she had kept with the instability of a roaming adventurer, but the promise of a steady income had been too convenient to turn away from. All this, for little but the promise of easy coin. Her father would be so proud.

Eres steps into the small inn at Kynesgrove, little more than a hovel, and brushes the snow from her clothes and hair. Though the place looks homely enough, the cold dread of the night before, and that of this morning, would not leave her. Her very blood seems to thrum with anxiety.

She spots him immediately.

There is a man sitting alone at one of the bench tables in one shadowed corner, with a mug held between both of his hands and his head hanging low. Around his head is tied a soiled bandage, stained brown with what might have been dirt or blood—or both.

She moves toward him, and notes how he doesn’t raise his head as she approaches, though she knows even his human ears can hear her approach.

She sits in front of him. His fingers tighten around his mug until his knuckles blanch.

“Hello,” she says mildly.

His uncovered eye flicks up to look at her at last, narrow and critical. “What do you want?”

“I’ve heard some disturbing rumors,” she says. She notices his eye dropping to peer at the robes she wears beneath her clothes, and tension draws his form ever tighter. He knows what she is, and likely why she is here. “About that eye of yours. Would you like to tell me what happened?”

“What does it matter?” he mutters. “Some old crone attacked me right outside. She gouged my eye out and shoved some—weird stone in its place.” One of his hands make as if to reach for the bandage, halts abruptly, and drops back down as if he’s thought better of it.

“Do you know what it does?”

His face darkens, and his lips pull down into a grimace. “I know, but it’s not a problem. I’ve got it handled,” he says hurriedly, and again his eyes flick down to her robes. “I got this bandage to cover it up. It only happens if I look at someone with it. As long as I keep it covered, nothing bad will happen.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “As long as some idiot doesn’t try to attack me, that is.”

She quirks a brow at him, nonplussed. Had he meant to threaten her, or had he merely been musing aloud?

“And did you see where this crone went?”

“I was a bit busy,” he says dryly. “Eye gouged out and all. Weird stone shoved in my head. I had other things on my mind than figuring out where that crazy old witch went. Wherever she is, I hope she stays gone!”

Eres hums. “And you’d never seen her before?”

“No! I’m just a miner!” A nearby table mutters indistinctly, and the man sinks lower into his seat. “I didn’t do nothin’. She just came at me. Just a crazy old woman. Maybe on skooma, for all I know.” He shrugs, jerkily. “How am I supposed to know? She came out of nowhere!”

Eres’ eyes drop to his chest, and with some effort, she tunes out the rest of the sound in the inn. Beneath all of the hubbub within, she can hear it – his heartbeat, steady against his ribcage. It is elevated, she thinks, but not in the way that might indicate he’s lying to her.

Perhaps this man really had just been unlucky. Wrong place at the wrong time, a convenient victim for a summoner who might be, yet again, staging a distraction to delay the Vigilants on her trail.

But Eres finds herself drawn to the same question she has wondered since the beginning. Why?

Why the Daedra at Whiterun, that had accomplished nothing but killing an old man in his bed, and injuring a few guards? Why the one at Windhelm, who’d been nothing more than a bother at best, lazing about on the floor in a back room? And, assuming it was connected – why the young vampire in Whiterun, killing indiscriminately?

She’s heard of witches in the wilds about Skyrim. She knows of the tales of the Forsworn witches, the Hagravens so entrenched in their magic and rituals that they’re hardly even human anymore – some cross between mortal and monster.

If the summoner had wanted to live in peace, free to practice her dark magic without interruption, there were surely plenty of caves and ruins and other hidden places all over Skyrim that she could choose to do it in, where the Vigilants would be less likely to hear of it.

So why risk practicing her dark arts so openly, and with so many witnesses? Why bother with such indiscrete summonings, with little to show for it?

If Eres was some Daedric summoner looking to sow chaos wherever she went, even she could think of better ways to do it. Summon the kind of Daedra you knew were especially violent, the kind that might plunge an entire hold into a panic. If you meant to distract a Vigilant and keep them from chasing you, surely there were more…straight forward ways to do so.

On her way back to Windhelm to make her report to Altano of the poor man in Kynesgrove, Eres can’t help but feel as though she is missing something.

All of these incidents, somehow, she is sure, are connected to each other. They all lead back to the summoner, she knows – but what purpose does the summoner serve?

It is a puzzle, laid out before her, and a piece of it is missing.

Eres gets the distinct feeling that when she finds that piece, it will all start to make sense. As it is, it feels a bit like Eres is trying to shape water in her hands. The solution keeps slipping right through her fingers.

“I see.” Altano says, when she tells him of her findings at Kynesgrove. He eats with his hands, and does not always close his mouth when he chews. The sound of his lips smacking together as he eats irks her. She wishes she could close her ears somehow, sometimes.

“He’s taken precautions, at least.”

Altano glances up at her, unimpressed. “Precautions, you say. With a Daedric artifact. There is no such thing. Regardless of whatever _precautions_ he has made, it is still too dangerous to allow it.”

Her eyes narrow. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he tells her. “You are a Vigilant. Surely by now, you know what you must do.”

“Gouge his eye out again?” She asks, deadpan.

“Of course not,” Altano scoffs. “If the Artifact has attached itself to him, it’s likely you wouldn’t be able to get it out, anyhow. I’m sure he’s tried.”

Eres blinks. She hadn’t expected him to take her comment seriously. She should have known better. It _was_ Altano.

“You’ll have to kill him.”

Eres’ spoon freezes in mid-air. “What?”

“You’ll have to kill him,” Altano repeats, his tone almost…casual. As though he’s discussing the weather, and not an innocent man’s life. “You won’t be able to get the Eye out otherwise, and he can’t be allowed to keep it.”

Eres leans back in her seat. “You’re telling me to kill an innocent man. Is this the type of behavior that Stendarr encourages? I thought you Vigilants were more righteous.”

“ _We_ Vigilants understand that there are sometimes costs that must be paid to keep the people safe,” Altano replies. He drops his own fork, and steeples his hands together in front of him. “Consider this, Eres. Say that he does have the Eye under control – for now. What happens when that control is tested? What happens when he decides to use it for his own gain? Or when he feels threatened? What happens when the aura of that artifact begins to corrupt him? And,” he adds, “I assure you, it will.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone. He’s just a miner.”

“For _now_ ,” Altano leans back, too, and regards her coolly. “That will change. It may only take days – or it could take years. It depends on the man’s strength of will. But eventually, it will corrupt him, and then he will be near unstoppable. Imagine trying to fight a man that could disable you with a single glance. How could we hope to stop him? How could anyone hope to stop him? Dozens, no— _hundreds_ of people might die, and it would all be because you were not strong enough to make the choice that had to be made, while it could be done.”

Eres scowls at him. “You kill him, then. I don’t want innocent blood on my hands.”

“I’m not the Novice,” Altano reminds her. “You answer to me. I give you an assignment. You complete it. That’s how this works. When you’ve a few years under your belt, perhaps you’ll have your own novice to order around.”

If Eres is still a Vigilant years from now, she hopes that someone will smack some sense into her. Perhaps she’ll write a letter to Yosef and Johanna asking them to do just that.

If they’re still alive.

Her hand drops to her pouch, fingers hovering over the clasp. She would have heard it if they’d responded. But it had only been a day. The mercenary would not have even arrived yet.

She has no idea if they ever will. Will she hear that whine again at all?

“Eres.” She looks up, meeting Altano’s strangely…sympathetic gaze. It is unlike him. “I understand that this is difficult for you. The life of a Vigilant is still new to you. But, whether you are a Vigilant, or soldier, or even a lowly mercenary – sometimes you will be forced to make difficult decisions such as this one. Decisions where you must weigh the outcome against the action you must take.”

“One man will die tonight,” Altano says gravely. “But you may save hundreds more, with his death. _That_ is how we serve Stendarr. We protect and serve as many people as we possibly can – even if that means we must make sacrifices.”

The ends justify the means.

It is not the first time Eres will hold a life in her hands, and now more than ever, she is certain that it will not be the last.


	7. Chapter 7

ACT II  
CHAPTER VII

Eres cannot kill him in the open.

Balor – she has learned his name, now, and wishes she hadn’t – is not like the vampire in Whiterun, where her very nature could absolve her of the crime of cold-blooded murder. As far as anyone in Kynesgrove is concerned, Balor is but a normal man, spending his days doing honest work.

She must wait until he’s alone, and no one can see him—or her. If she doesn’t, she might find herself in the Windhelm dungeons. If she’s not executed immediately, that is.

She doubts she wouldn’t be. An elf, killing a Breton man? The Bretons may not be Nords, but they are closer to them than her own kind. The Stormcloaks certainly hold no affection for any of the Mer such as herself. She’s certain any punishment she is handed would be harsh twice over for the crime of a _dirty elf_ killing an upstanding Breton citizen.

And so, she waits until the sun has set, and darkness falls over the small, poorly lit village. She should, she supposed, be grateful that Kynesgrove is such a small little village. Had it been a more developed city, even nighttime may not have provided much cover.

As it is, the torchlight is few and far in between, and with the fall of night, many retire to their homes. The mine closes, and the exhausted men trudge towards their homes, towards the small tent-circle near the center of the small mining town, or to the tavern.

Balor lags behind the rest. His hand raises to press against the bandage, as if it pains him, and he stumbles just enough that he stops in place, swaying.

Eres does not know whether the Eye pains him, and she must not allow herself to care. What matters is that his delay has separated him from the rest, and this may be the only chance she gets to take him without witnesses.

She emerges from the shadows, crossing the short distance between them in short order. Balor, righting himself, moves to resume his walk home – and then he sees her.

“Evening,” he mutters cautiously, and moves to walk past her.

She steps into his way. He halts, tensing, and glares at her.

“I told you, I ain’t done nothin—”

“I know,” she says, despite herself. She hadn’t meant to speak to him. She _shouldn’t_ speak to him. He is just a man, a man who could kill hundreds, or worse. He is too dangerous to let live. If she starts to sympathize with him, she may just be tempted to let him live.

Who is she kidding?

She’s never wanted to kill him. But she must.

He nods stiffly, stepping to her left to walk around her.

Eres closes her eyes, and takes a breath. Her hand snaps out to catch him at his chest, pushing him back into place. She does not release him.

Silver flashes in her other hand. When Balor sees it, he tries to pull away, jerking away from her grip on his collar, his expression morphing to something between anger and fear and his right hand starts to raise.

“For what it’s worth,” she says to him, even as she slides the blade between his ribs, “I am sorry.”

Blood spills over her fingers. His voice gurgles in his mouth when he tries to speak, and his only eye locks with hers. She cannot bring herself to look away, even as he begins to weigh heavy on the blade, even when she sees his right hand raise further and pull at the bandage around his head, even as that bandage is ripped away from his face—

Lightning flashes behind her eyes. She stumbles back, blinking, her bloodied hand reaching for her own eyes even as he drops to the ground before her. She presses her palms into her eyes and rubs, pain lancing through her skull—

And then she hears a high pitched whine. Her heart jumps, and Eres yanks her hands from her eyes and tries to reach for her pouch but the white won’t fade from her eyes and that whine grows louder and louder until it feels like the sound pierces through her eardrums and bores into her mind—

Eres blinks.

She’s on her knees, next to him. The sounds of the crackling fire just yards away, so clear moments before, sound somehow distant and muffled, like someone has stuffed cotton into her ears. The edges of her vision are a dark, reddish black only just beginning to fade away. Everything seems somehow too bright and too dark all at once.

Balor lies motionless just inches from her knee. Her eyes travel up from the wound in his chest, still slowly leaking, to his collar, to his neck, and she reaches his nose before she remembers.

She turns her eyes away.

Her hands shake as she reaches for his face with one hand, and pulls her blade from his ribs with the other. She traces tremulous fingers from his nose to the socket of his right eye, and with her other hand, she blindly levers the blade behind the stone – trying her best to ignore the sound and feeling of sinew and tendon against her blade – and she pops the stone into her waiting hand.

She wraps that stone in thick, rough cloth, ties it with twine with bloodied, shaky fingers – and then places that wrapped stone deep into her robes.

Eres does not look at him as she stands. She does not look at him as she walks away. She does not look at him as she fades into the snowy forest at the edges of the tiny, peaceful village.

She does not need to look at him, because she can see him in her mind. With every blink, she is reminded of the look he had given her as she slid her blade between his ribs.

Eres kneels to wash her hands and blade in the snow, and, lead-footed, makes her way back to Windhelm in the dead of night.

She wakes Altano by shoving the stone into his chest hard enough to bruise. He startles, wide eyes looking up at her.

“It’s done.”

Altano’s hand catches her at the elbow when she tries to walk away.

“It may not seem like it now, Novice, but you’ve done a good thing. For the people of Kynesgrove and all of Skyrim. It was too dangerous to let him live.”

When Eres closes her eyes, white flashes behind them. It’s almost too bright to bear.

“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?”

For a moment, Altano is quiet. The feeling of his hand wrapped around her arm makes her skin crawl.

“We do what we must, Eres.” She feels him stand. His hand moves, only to join his other in resting upon her shoulders. She wants to rip away from him, to hit him, to kill him as he’d made her kill Balor, even—but her limbs are as lead. She is rooted to the spot and helpless and wishing for all the world that she might simply drop here and sleep for eternity. It would be easier.

“That heart of yours can be your greatest strength, Eres.” He murmurs, far too close to her ear for comfort. “But if you don’t learn to guard it—if you don’t learn to hold yourself at a distance… That same heart of yours may very well be what kills you in the end.”

Funny. From the pain in her chest, she might have thought it was already killing her.

Eres pulls herself away from him, from his graveled voice and his heavy hands and his discomfiting aura and everything that is Altano, drawing herself as separate from him as she can possibly be. She does not want his comfort or his honeyed words or his worldly advice or his experience or, or, or. She wants nothing to do with any part of him or this or _killing innocent men in the dead of night while their eyes beg you not to –_ she has never wanted any of this and she hates that it feels like he’s grooming her, molding her into his image, into something she isn’t and could never be. She won't let him. 


	8. Chapter 8

ACT II  
CHAPTER VIII

“So, you’re finally awake.”

Eres groans, and rolls over. There is wood beneath her hands—wood that shifts as she moves. She feels suddenly ill on top of the incessant pounding in her head and the ringing in her ears.

“I wish I wasn’t,” she mutters, and pushes herself up onto her knees.

It takes her several long moments to process where she is. Beneath her is the carriage of a horse-pulled cart. Above her is the blue, blue sky, and standing beside the cart is Altano, his arms crossed over his chest and one brow raised, looking up at her. Behind him, a great wall rises into the sky, interrupted only by a great gate manned by two guards wearing purple regalia on either side.

“Where the hell am I?”

“Riften,” Altano answers. He steps aside so that she can climb down—or rather, nearly tumble off the side of the cart as she loses her balance. She manages to right herself before faceplanting into the dirt. “You’ve been out for nearly two days. If you hadn’t been groaning in your sleep, I might’ve thought you were dead.”

Days? She’d been out for _days_? And what, for the love of all the gods, was that blasted _noise_?

Eres raises a hand to her ear, rubbing at the skin just in front of it. She can feel the pressure against her ear drum, but that hideous whining doesn’t go away.

Then she feels it.

She nearly scrambles for her pouch, digging through it until her hand closes around the parchment within.

“What’s got you all worked up?”

She ignores him, and unrolls it. She holds it flat against the palm of one hand and uses the other to activate it—with some degree of difficulty, given that she can barely see straight with the migraine assaulting her.

Inked words begin to scrawl against the page, and she nearly falls to her knees in relief – both from the fact that she has received a message, which means that they are alive; and from the sudden, welcome cessation of that god-awful ringing. She really must find a better way to signal that a message has been received than such a horrid, irritating sound.

 _“Eres,”_ the parchment reads, _“we cannot thank you enough. But we must inform you, the portcullis will need repairs. One of the bandits tried his luck with the seal when that mercenary you hired approached – with Tomlen and his boy, and some Imperial scout, too. Apparently word of the bandits had reached the Whiterun markets where Tomlen had set up his stall. They all met on the road. Did you know Tomlen used to be a soldier himself? Between him, the man Brant, and that mercenary, they managed to scare the bandits off. We’re all safe and little worse for wear. The coin you sent reached us safely as well. Brant told us to ensure we told you that – can’t risk his reputation, he said. We’ve given a small portion to the mercenary, as requested. The rest we will put towards hiring a small guard. Tomlen and Yosef have set to work on building guard towers by the entrance, and reinforcing the walls about the property…”_

__

Eres rolls the parchment shut, and it feels as though a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders. They are all safe, and well. Was it Divine providence that the mercenary she’d hired had come upon Tomlen and Brant upon the roads? Skyrim truly was so very small, sometimes.

__

“I trust everything’s alright back at home?”

__

Eres shoves the scroll back into her pouch, and turns to look at Altano. “Everything’s fine.” She offers him nothing more, and he merely nods in return.

__

“That’s good. You slept through a Daedra.”

__

Her eyebrows raise high on her forehead.

__

“We both did, really. I received word from Stendarr’s Beacon that the summoner had been spotted in the Ratways here in Riften – that’s why I had to grab you and lug your sorry ass into that carriage,” Altano says, as he begins walking towards the gate. She follows, silently, and ignores the sour look the guards give them as they walk inside. She expects nothing less in Stormcloak territory. “Didn’t have time to wait for you to decide to join the world of the living.”

__

“Sorry,” she manages, and at least this once, she does mean it. “I don’t know what happened.”

__

“Probably the Eye,” Altano replies, almost conversationally. He even shrugs as though it can’t be helped. “It has a strong effect on people. I’m surprised you’re even still coherent.”

__

“Let’s not count our blessings,” Eres mutters, averting her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about what that Eye could have done to her. She’s not going to jinx herself by wondering why it hadn’t worked – or had it? She can just barely remember seeing a flash of light right after he looked at her, but maybe…

__

Eres shakes her head. There’s no use dwelling on it. She’s sane – for now – and that’s all that really matters.

__

“Anyway, it’s not a short trip from Windhelm. By the time we arrived, the guard had already handled the Daedra. After a good amount of bribery, that is,” Altano says this so quietly that even Eres has to strain to hear it.

__

Altano leads her through the city, and it is only when she sees the set of stairs leading downward that she realizes that Riften appears to be built over the water – and there is a second level beneath what they had been walking on. Didn’t they worry about flooding? What would happen to those living below when the waters rose?

__

“The guard here are rather corrupt,” Altano continues at a whisper. “This is where the Thieves Guild makes their home. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” She nods. “They’re not as powerful as they used to be in the past, perhaps, but they still have the guards here in Riften in their pockets. And, it seems, they all have the sin of sloth – that Daedra was causing havoc in the Bee and Barb for nearly a full day before they bothered to put it down.”

__

“Any casualties?”

__

“No, thankfully. Another worthless Daedra,” he replies. “From what I heard, it spent all its time just eating anything it could find. They might be low on food stores for a bit, but at least everyone’s alive.”

__

Well, at least there was that. But again, the summoner had done something that didn’t make sense. If this summoner was so powerful as to summon Daedra on a whim, why would she keep summoning such useless ones? Why didn’t she summon Daedra who would pose a threat?

__

Or, Eres wonders, did even summoned Daedra have their own wills? Perhaps controlling a Daedra was a bit like trying to control a cat – they did what they wanted, whether it was your intention or not. It’s not as though Eres has any experience with summoning to know for herself, and she doesn’t plan to seek that experience out. Ever.

__

Altano leads her down the stairs, across a short bridge, and into a door with a strange marking carved in the brick beside it.

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As soon as the door opens, Eres smacks her hand over her face.

__

“It _stinks_ ,” she pulls her scarf tight around her nose and mouth, but even that does little to block the stench.

__

“I suppose it’s not always beneficial to have stronger senses,” Altano mutters, but he, too, has pulled his mask up, and his voice has turned a bit nasal, as though he’s holding his breath. “I’ve never liked this place, but I’ve got a few contacts down in the Ragged Flagon. If anyone might have heard something about this summoner, it’d be them.”

__

“Is this a _sewer?_ ”

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“It is. How could you tell?”

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Eres groans in disgust and tries not to breathe too deeply.

__

__

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“You want me to do what?”

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“Find the Khajiit in the Ratways.” Altano repeats. “He’s the one who summoned the Daedra at the Bee and Barb – but not the one we need. If I’m not here when you’ve returned, I’ll have headed to the Beacon. You can meet me there if I’ve left already.”

__

“I don’t even know where the Beacon _is_ , Altano,” she sighs. The air down here makes her feel like she needs to sneeze, but that would mean inhaling deeply. She tries her hardest to avoid it.

__

“It’s just southwest of Riften. Head southwest from the main entrance, following the wall. There’s a path that leads right up to it – and you can’t miss the tower from the road. You’ll find it. I have faith in you.” He smiles, then turns away to leave.

__

Oh, _joy_. He has faith in her. To go crawling around some fucking sewers looking for some cat that summoned a demon. What has her life become?

__

__

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“Knife? Yes. Bucket? Yes. Inkpot? Yes. No, no, no…”

__

Eres steps through the door and peers upward into the collection of—cells? Rooms? She’s not sure what to call the little hovels within the vast tunnels of the Ratway, other than that they are little more than nooks in the walls enclosed with barred gates. Whichever woman is rambling about… household items is not visible to her within the shadows of the upper rooms.

__

In the distance, there is of course the maddening sound of water – or some other vile liquid – dripping onto the stone floor. Even the walls nearest her glisten with moisture, though she’s not sure where it comes from. She’s not sure she wants to know.

__

But there, within the room she’s entered, standing with his back facing her, is a single Khajiit man, dressed in little but a ragged tunic and trousers, mumbling to himself.

__

Whatever he might be saying, Eres cannot understand it. Even his mumbled speech mere feet away from her is drowned out by the rambling of the addled woman somewhere above.

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“Are you the Khajiit they call Jo’vanni?” Eres keeps her distance, but she palms her dagger just in case. She’s learned by now that many of the inhabitants of these sewer tunnels are not especially friendly.

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The Khajiit turns, spinning to look at her with wild eyes. His pupils are mere slits despite the dim lighting, and Eres sighs inwardly – wonderful. A summoner _and_ a skooma addict?

__

“He _is_ Jo’vanni,” the cat answers, tilting his head. “Jo’vanni does not know you. Who are you? Did the woman send you? Jo’vanni did as she told him too—”

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“What woman?” Eres’ brows meet. There was someone influencing him? Then, was he not the summoner they had meant to find, but another? “Did you summon a Daedra here?”

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“Jo’vanni is looking for Campene’ra. The glowing woman said Jo’vanni would find her if he did it—Jo’vanni did what she said, but nothing happened!”

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Her frown deepens. She sees his knees bend, his hands raising, and she allows the dagger in her hand to slip lower until she is grasping it at the hilt.

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“Jo’vanni noticed!” He exclaims, grinning wide. “Jo’vanni is very smart, you see! The liver of a skeever was not good enough! Perhaps the liver in front of him will be? Jo’vanni says so, Campene’ra will say so!”

__

And he lunges at her with his hands, swiping for her throat with the inch-long claws that serve as his nails. She leans away from the swipe, ducking under it, and with a flash of silver, buries her dagger into his chest. She wrests it free just as quickly, dancing lightly backwards, away from him—and he sways in place, one of his hands coming to press at the wound.

__

He drops to his knees.

__

“Why?” He asks, his voice but a croak. He reaches for her, but his claws have retracted, and Eres, despite herself, steps closer. His hand closes around her arm. “Why do you kill Jo’vanni?”

__

His voice is _so_ small, like a child’s, and guilt claws its way into her chest. Why _had_ she stabbed him? He was unarmed, she could have simply disabled him – but now… This poor Khajiit had just been manipulated. He wasn’t even in his right mind, probably just as crazy as the old woman on the second floor, and she’d killed him for it. He wasn’t even the summoner they wanted!

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“Jo’vanni…just wants to find Campaner’ra…” He murmurs. His grip on her starts to loosen. He meets her eyes beseechingly. “Please, my Campener’ra… find her… you must…”

__

Spots flash across her vision. Eres shakes her head, closing her eyes tight, and tries to clear it—

__

When she opens them again, she is not in the Ratway tunnels. Jo’vanni is not lying dead at her feet. There is no woman rambling in the distance somewhere above her.

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Instead, she feels fur beneath her fingers, and wood beneath her toes, and there is a woman stirring a cookpot just feet away from her.

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“Wake up, Jo’vanni!” The woman calls, and turns her head. A Khajiit woman, with golden fur, turns to her. “Get out of bed, it is morning. This one made your favorite soup today. It will get cold if you do not eat quickly!”

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Eres blinks, and she is at the table, seated across from this strange, Khajiit woman with her warm voice, and a bowl of what appears to be tomato soup set in front of her.

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“Campener’ra?” She asks, hesitant.

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The cat looks up from her own bowl of soup, and hisses deep in her throat. “Your _soup_ , Jo’vanni! Eat!”

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Eres looks down. Her hand moves to lift the spoon, then to dip it into the red, steaming broth—and then she hears what sounds like a knife, scraping against leather. She knows that sound – it is the sound of someone working at a tanning rack.

__

But when she looks up again, the Khajiit Campener’ra is not sitting across from her.

__

Instead, at her right, is another Khajiit man, kneeling before a tanning rack with a beautiful golden pelt stretched across it, patiently scraping it clean.

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“Pretty pelt,” the Khajiit says to himself, shaking his head as he admires it. “Such a pretty pelt… So very pretty…”

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“Mar’so…” Eres does not know how she knows his name. But it falls from her lips without pause, as though she has known it all along. The pelt looks…familiar, somehow… “Is that…?”

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The Khajiit smiles to himself, but he does not look at her. He hums softly as he works, perfectly content. “It is Campener’ra,” he confirms. “Mar’so and Campener’ra will be together soon.”

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Eres’ stomach lurches. That Khajiit woman—he’d _killed_ her? And skinned her? What did he plan to do?

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“Campener’ra would not look at Mar’so,” he continues. “But Mar’so wants to be with Campener’ra.”

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“Jo’vanni will never forgive you, Mar’so!” The voice that leaves her throat is somehow both her own, and not, all at once.

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Mar’so chuckles. “Jealous, Jo’vanni?” He mocks. “Jealousy makes one ugly. Mar’so used to be ugly, but now he has Campener’ra. He is not ugly anymore. Campener’ra is with him. Mar’so will not be cold even in wintry Skyrim with Campener’ra to keep him warm…”

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The image of Mar’so fades before her eyes, the tanning rack with it, and she is left alone, staring at the space he has occupied.

__

When Eres blinks again, she finds herself back in the sewer, with Jo’vanni’s body lying prone before her, his eyes staring into hers. A glaze has started to form in them, his eyes vacant and unseeing, but she swears she hears him speak one last time before his breath leaves him at last.

__

_“Find Mar’so,”_ she hears him say. _“Return Campener’ra to Jo’vanni. Jo’vanni has only ever wanted to be with Campener’ra.”_

__

His hand falls from her arm completely. Eres shudders as it leaves her, and Jo’vanni appears to breathe his last breath. Somehow, beneath her vambrace, her arm burns where he has touched her.

__

Eres stands.

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“Inkpot. Stone. Bucket. Book. Knife.”

__

Eres takes a breath. The woman continues her rambling – as if nothing has happened. As if Eres hasn’t murdered an unfortunate, manipulated man in cold blood, when he had only been following the wishes of a woman who aimed to sow chaos wherever she went. How many victims would this one summoner have? How many lives would Eres have to take before this was over?

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__

__

When Eres returns to Altano within the Flagon, and relates to him what has happened, she does not tell him that she wants to find this Mar’so, and deliver to him the justice that poor Jo’vanni has asked her for with his dying breath.

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Even so, Altano looks at her for a few short seconds, nods to himself, and says, “And I suppose you want to find this Mar’so, then.”

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Eres frowns at him. “How did you know?”

__

One of the residents of the Ratway, the man that Eres had seen behind the bar, drops off a single bowl of soup in front of her. He is not particularly careful with it, and some of it leaps out of the bowl and spills onto the table as the bowl rocks in place and settles.

__

But it looks too similar to the last meal Campener’ra had served Jo’vanni, and only makes her stomach turn. Even if she _could_ eat when her nose burns with the stench of waste, she could not eat this.

__

“I can see it in your eyes.” Altano says. “There’s a Khajiit caravan just outside of town. Maybe you can find something out about this Mar’so there.”

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Eres’ frown deepens. “You’re going to let me search for him?”

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“What God do we serve, Eres?” Altano asks her, almost gently. “Stendarr is not only the God of Justice,” he continues, “but he is also the God of Mercy. That Jo’vanni character was merely a pawn for this summoner. Perhaps it is even Stendarr who showed you his memories. Deliver this cat his last mercy, if you can.”

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For a moment, Altano is silent, merely stirring his soup. He doesn’t seem particularly inclined to eat it, either.

__

“I know that our last assignment was difficult for you. Sometimes it is not easy, dispensing the justice that Stendarr demands, even when we know that we are righteous in our actions. If this is what you feel you must do, then do it. Jacob’s Vigilants are still looking for traces of the summoner, anyhow. We have some time for you to look around.”

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Eres stands, and doesn’t quite manage to pull off looking as though she is not rushing to get out of there. “Where should I meet you?”

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“I’ll be staying in the Bee and Barb, I think,” Altano mutters, looking around him. He wrinkles his nose, too, and Eres almost wants to tell him he should be grateful for his dulled senses in comparison to hers. “If I’m not there, I will have left for the Beacon.”

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“How long do I have?”

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“If you’ve not found him in a couple of days, it will have to wait.”

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“Understood.”

__

Eres spins on her heel, and marches quickly out of the Ragged Flagon, out of the Ratways, and into the open, blissfully clean air of Riften proper. She has never been so grateful for the smell of a fish market.

__

Eres climbs the stairs two at a time and makes her way out of the Riften gate, ignoring the burly man who shouts at her when she walks past. She wasn’t in Riften looking for trouble, and he looked like he was it.

__

Outside the gates, beyond the stables, there is the familiar sight of a large, fur tent pitched just outside the city. It is large enough to fit several men inside, though it seems most of the occupants are milling about around the campsite, sitting near the fire or patrolling the edges.

__

Khajiit men.

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Eres makes a beeline for the first one she sees, sitting cross-legged upon a rug and pillow in the opening of one of the smaller tents.

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He looks up at her as she approaches. His eyes are so narrow that he almost appears to be squinting at her, and from the white streaks in his fur, he appears to be a Khajiit of considerable age.

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“Khajiit has wares, if you have the coin,” he says as she approaches.

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“That’s not what I’m looking for.” She’s broke, anyways – between sending most of her salary to Fellburg, and hiring that mercenary right after. “I’m looking for a Khajiit named Mar’so. Have you heard of him?”

__

She does not miss the look this Khajiit exchanges with one of the others sitting near the fire. She glances at that one suspiciously, wondering – but no, his fur is nearly midnight black, and Mar’so’s had been a soft grey. It was not the same cat.

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“Khajiit _may_ know of who you seek,” the Khajiit salesman says slowly. He tilts his head back to look up at her, his hands folded mildly in his lap. “For what reason do you seek this Mar’so?”

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“I have something I need to speak with him about,” she lies. Eres figures that telling this one she plans to kill Mar’so wouldn’t exactly be the best idea.

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The trader hums low in his throat, and his eyes narrow further. “This one thinks you have some quarrel with this Mar’so.”

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“…He has something that was stolen from… a friend of mine,” Eres says, careful. She doesn’t think this Khajiit will just hand over a man – or cat, rather – if he knew she meant him harm. But that Mar’so had killed a woman and _skinned her_. And then, presumably, _wore her_.

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The Khajiit hums once more, and nods slowly several times. “This one knows where you may find him. He hides in Shor’s Stone, posing as a lowly miner. This one believes he hides for a reason.” His eyes stare up at Eres, sagely and knowing.

__

For some reason, she has the sense that he knows _exactly_ what Mar’so has done – or at least, has heard something unsavory enough about his character that he cares not what happens to him.

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Eres bids the trader farewell, thanking him for his information, and she thanks the Divines, too, that this Mar’so was not halfway across Skyrim in say, _Markarth_ , where it would easily take over a week to reach him.

__

Shor’s Stone, on the other hand, is a mere half-day from Riften, and if she leaves now and walks all night, she can make it back to Riften by morning to make their trek to Stendarr’s Beacon together.

__

Plan in mind, Eres double checks the tips of her arrows and the edge of her dagger. Then, she begins to walk.

__

__

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“Taken care of it?” Altano asks, when she joins him the next morning.

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Eres tugs at the ends of her hair and sniffs. Perhaps it’s just in her head, but she swears the smell of the sewers still isn’t gone. She’d washed it at least five times that morning.

__

“Yes.” She’s glad that she’s free of that burden. While she had been glad to rid the world of a person like Mar’so, carrying around the hide of a dead Khajiit had not been her favorite experience. Some part of her mind argues that the pelt of a sabre cat or wolf should be no different, but there was a difference between a wild animal and an intelligent person. She hadn’t known Campener’ra, of course, but she’d seen her in the memories Jo’vanni—or Stendarr—had shown her. She was _almost_ real enough to mourn.

__

Almost.

__

Eres had placed Campener’ra’s pelt over Jo’vanni’s still chest in the sewers. His body had not been moved since she’d left him, and, thankfully, it seemed the skeevers had not yet discovered him. She could have cremated him, possibly, and saved him from the rats, but she’s not actually sure what Khajiit typically do with their dead, and so she did not.

__

Jo’vanni thanked her—or, maybe it was Stendarr, speaking with his voice? She’s not entirely sure anymore, but the point is that the little trip is over and done with, and hopefully, she will never find another reason to go traipsing about the sewers of Riften again.

__

“Feel better?”

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Eres shrugs. She felt better for Jo’vanni, she supposes, in that he’d gotten his dying wish and hopefully could rest in peace. She felt better for Mar’so, that he was dead now and couldn’t decide to kill another woman just because she loved someone else, and then take her fur as a trophy. She felt better for resolving something that was _simple_ and _straightforward_ and didn’t have her scratching her head at night trying to figure it out.

__

Jo’vanni and Mar’so and Campener’ra, as horrible as their story had been, had been painfully, woefully human. A story of love, of jealousy, of tragedy. It was as straightforward as it gets.

__

“To Stendarr’s Beacon now?”

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“To Stendarr’s Beacon,” Altano confirms. “Jacob sent word that he has a lead on that summoner finally. I think they’ve finally managed to track her down.”

__

“About time,” Eres grouses. She gathers her things, and falls in step beside him. 

__


	9. Chapter 9

ACT II  
CHAPTER IX

Stendarr’s Beacon looms above them, a solitary spire of dark, quarried stone against the backdrop of the snowy mountains and hills beneath it. Eres has never been to the Beacon before now, and even she can tell that something is wrong.

A campfire burns bright against the night sky, and there is the figure of a man lying beside it. But he does not lie as a man might if he sleeps, or even if he is resting – he lies as a man might if he no longer breathes. The snow is stained dark around him.

“Oh, no.” Eres breathes out the words a moment before her feet spurn into action, Altano sprinting up the hill in front of her.

“Leave.”

Eres halts, mere feet from the body by the fire. He is indeed, very much dead – his simple robes had done nothing to guard him from the slash that ripped across his chest. The gash is so deep that his body sags around it, as though a few inches more would have severed his torso entirely. His eyes stare blankly up at the night sky.

She turns, and her eyes light upon the man in dark plated armor, leaning almost casually against the outer wall of the spire. At his back is strapped a greatsword as dark as night – whether it is the metal it is forged from that is so dark, or the blood that surely stains it, Eres does not know.

“What did you _do_?” Altano pulls his own sword from its sheath, but the sight of him in his robes against this mountain of a man in plate armor is almost laughable.

“My job,” the man answers plainly. “I have no quarrel with you. Leave now, and you may live.”

Altano’s face contorts with anger. “You’re the summoner’s mercenary, aren’t you! Jacob—” he turns, looking as though he might look to run around the man, but the man steps forward, emerging from the shadows and into the firelight – and blocks his path.

“You will not pass me,” the mercenary states grimly. His right hand reaches to grasp at the hilt of his greatsword. “I have been tasked with guarding this place. You may not enter.”

He pulls the sword from his back, and the edges of it glisten with blood that is still fresh, and something much darker that glimmers around the edges. When Eres tries to look at it, tries to capture whatever it might be, it shifts and vanishes, only to reappear at the corner of her eye, as though it slinks away from her vision like black smoke.

What _is_ that substance?

“I will not ask again.” The man points his blade at the ground, and rests it there in an almost statuesque stance, his hands wrapped about the hilt. “Leave now, or I will be forced to kill you.”

Through his helm, his voice sounds garbled and distant, somehow guttural – but even so, Eres hears something like pleading in his tone. He begs them to leave, so he is not forced to kill them.

A part of her wants to. She has never seen a man so large, or a sword so— _vile._ There is something about that sword that makes her stomach turn, and something tells her that a blow from that sword cannot be survived.

“Altano…” She starts, uncertain.

Altano brandishes his blade. “I’ll take care of him. Go and check for survivors!”

She almost wants to laugh at him. _Him_? Against _that?_ She knows that he is an Elite, and that he has many more years of experience than she does, but he isn’t even wearing armor! Those precious Vigilant robes of his won’t do him any good against a man in _plate_ with a sword bigger than he is!

Altano must see her indecision, because he turns his head just long enough to yell at her. “Go!”

She springs into action, and the dark warrior lifts his blade and turns to follow her, but then Altano is leaping in front of him, blocking his view of her. The man grunts and swings, his sword swiping through the air in a wide arc, viscous dark shadow trailing behind it like he swings it through smoke, and Altano rolls out of the way just so that it might hit the stone wall of the Beacon.

Eres hears a great _clang!_ And a shower of sparks, and then she ducks away from them, darting behind as Altano draws the man away from the doorway – Eres does not stop to mourn the bloodied corpse sprawled against the altar in the entrance, but sprints down the stairs to the left.

Blood is _everywhere_ , she finds, and too much of it, it seems, for the bodies she’s found thrown against the walls or sagged against furniture.

Had that one man really killed so many of them by himself? Or had the summoner helped him?

With so many men slaughtered by that one man’s blade, could Altano really stand a chance against him? How long would it be before Altano fell, and that man came for Eres?

She hears a shout from up above. There is nothing she can hear from below – there is only silence, and the stench of freshly spilled blood.

There can’t have been any survivors. Not with this kind of bloodshed.

Eres spins on her heel, and sprints back up the stairs she’d come from. The sounds of that deadly duel get closer, until she is at the landing again, staring out at their darkened figures in the snow.

Altano is, in comparison to the man, smaller, and faster. He dodges when the man swings his blade, ducks behind him, tries to catch him with his own blade – but the blade of a Vigilant is not meant to punch through plate armor, and he has done little more than leave dents where his blows have fallen.

Eres ducks into the shadow where the firelight cannot reach her form, and peers out at the man – there has to be a weakness. It’s too risky to use her bow – even with the steadiest of aim, it’s too likely that one of them will move before her arrow lands, and then she might kill Altano by mistake.

She cannot risk that.

Oh. Oh, no. Eres squints her eyes closed and takes just the shortest moment to slap her face with her hand. She is not going to like this – it is by far one of the _stupidest_ and most suicidal plans she has ever come up with, but it is the only thing she can think of to work.

Eres sprints towards them both. Altano stumbles backward, shocked by her appearance, but the man does not – he lifts his blade and swings it upwards from the ground in a wide arc.

If there is one thing she has learned about greatswords and men who use them, it is that they are incredibly slow and not especially accurate. A greatsword, she imagines, is more about the power and reach of such a weapon – not about its practicality against a smaller, more agile opponent.

She ducks beneath the swing, and keeps her momentum going, darting underneath the blade and behind him and then she, like some irritating little child-thing, leaps onto his back, grabs his visor, and lifts it.

And then, with her other hand, she smashes a potion right into his eyes.

He screams – but, to his credit, he does not drop his sword. He switches to a one-handed grip, and with his other, he grabs Eres’ arm as she tries to retreat and the world turns upside down.

Her breath is _punched_ from her lungs and she sees stars. And then she sees darkness, closing in on her head.

She rolls, and the blade slams into the ground just next to her.

Eres scrambles to her feet, ducking back again – but as she straightens, she hears a wet, sickening squelch, and the splatter of blood.

For a moment, her heart stops.

And then she sees Altano, with his blade buried deep into the opening of the visor, the point of his blade emerging from the back of the mercenary’s helmet. Altano plants his foot in the man’s chest and rips his blade free.

The mercenary falls, a great, ugly gash where his eyes had once been. Blood leaks slowly from his helmet. He does not breathe again.

In the silence of the winter night, Altano recovers his breath. He leans down to wipe his blade clean with the snow, and when he straightens again, he looks at her with something between gratitude and utter disappointment.

“That,” he manages, through heavy, panting breaths, “was just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

Some part of her finds that incredibly funny, for some reason.

“You’d have died if I hadn’t,” Eres points out. “You weren’t going to make it through that armor.” She kicks it, just to demonstrate. Even just the sound of her foot hitting it sounds like a great _thwunk_. “Not with that.” She points at his blade.

Altano sighs. “I know.” He says. He sheathes it, then steps closer. “Did you find anything? Anyone alive down there?”

“Not that I saw, but I didn’t search the whole place,” she admits. “I couldn’t just leave you to die up here.”

Altano regards her with a strange, unreadable look. After a moment, he nods. “There goes that heart of yours again,” he muses, “getting you into trouble.”

Eres rolls her eyes at him, and kneels down in front of the body. There is something peeking out of the breastplate of his armor – a piece of parchment? She pulls it free carefully so that it does not rip, and tucks it into her pocket. There is no telling what might be on it – but if it’s somehow related to the summoner, she wants it as evidence now, rather than later when it might come up missing.

By the time she looks up again, Altano is already in the doorway of the Beacon, waiting for her.

She runs to catch up with him, and they descend into the basement of the spire together.

“Any injuries?”

“No,” Altano says. “Though it was close.” He shakes his head. “Let’s hope there’s not any other dark knights down here looking for a fight. My stamina isn’t what it used to be.”

Eres makes a face at that, but she does hand him a potion of a sickly green color. He makes a face at the sight of it, but swallows it without further complaint. Within minutes, the weariness in him seems to lessen ever so slightly.

“Hello? Anyone alive down here?”

“Do you think if they weren’t, they’d answer?” Eres asks dully, and she pointedly ignores the dark glare Altano sends her.

“He—here,” calls out a frail, weak sounding voice.

Altano then quirks a brow at her, as if to say, _See?_ And he jogs down the hall into the room the voice had come from.

An older Vigilant, well into his elderly years, rests half-conscious against a storage chest at the foot of a bed.

“Jacob?”

“Altano,” the man breathes, with not a small amount of relief. “I thought he’d killed everyone…”

“Are you the only survivor?” Eres asks. She hardly needs to. She’s seen the rest of the basement.

“Yes…” Jacob drops his head, and stares forlornly at his lap. “Yes, I think so… They stormed in here and killed everyone they saw.”

He lets out a pathetic, wet little laugh; the sound of a man on the verge of tears and trying desperately not to break. Eres’ heart aches for him – he has just seen all of his comrades slaughtered before his eyes.

“Once again,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Once again, I alone survive…” Her brows meet. “The summoner—there is an ancient altar beneath the Beacon. The Daedra called her ‘Bal’. She must be serving him… You have to stop her.”

“I’ll go ahead,” Altano pulls his sword from his sheath once more. “You take care of Jacob.”

“But—”

But Altano is already running off out of the door and down the hallway – to the stairs that lead ever downward.

Whose brilliant idea was it to build the Beacon on top of a Daedric altar? Hadn’t they known what kind of chaos it would invite?

“Oh, we must help him…” Jacob struggles to his feet, shooing her when she reaches to aid him. “That summoner… she is incredibly powerful. All the Daedra she has summoned so far and now this… I shudder to think of what she may be planning. Altano will need our help. We must go.”

Jacob insists on walking on his own, but Eres slows herself to fall in step beside him – so that she might catch him if he falls.

He does not fall, not even stumble, but he mumbles to himself as he goes. “She looks just like my wife… Oh, Rahel…”

“Bal?” She asks, and she tries to think of a way to distract him. “You think she’s received power from Molag Bal?”

She knows of Molag Bal – if only vaguely. Her studies had not focused much upon the Daedric lords, so taboo were their natures in Cyrodiil. She knows only the most basic of ideas of the Princes, and the realms they preside over.

She knows enough to know that Molag Bal is _bad_.

“He is the Prince of Domination and Enslavement,” Jacob utters gravely. “Many Vigilants have been corrupted by his influence…”

“ _Vigilants_?” Eres has to force herself to keep walking. “Of all people?”

“His influence is unlike any other…” Jacob murmurs. “Even I… Even I was once corrupted by him… In my time of need… I… I was dying. I had no choice – he offered me his help. My life… in exchange for my wife’s soul. I … accepted. It is my deepest regret…”

Eres feels sick, suddenly. How could he have done such a thing? Was he so afraid of dying that he’d damn his wife to such a fate? Had he loved his wife at all?

“I killed innocents in the name of Stendarr…”

Eres’ jaw tightens. Damning your wife’s soul to, what? Oblivion? And then, killing innocents, too? Were these Vigilants even—how could they claim to serve the god of Righteousness and Justice, when so many of them seemed to be the exact opposite?

Even Eres herself was not… Even Eres’ hands are not clean.

If there is one thing that Eres has learned about Daedra, and summons – it is that the death of the summoner often means the severance of the connection with those entities they have summoned.

When Rahel – who Eres cannot tell whether she is human or a ghost or some manifestation of a spirit or _whatever_ – summons the two Daedra to hold their attention, Eres instead aims for her.

 _Sorry, Jacob_.

Her arrow lands. The fool woman hadn’t even worn armor.

With a sputter, she clutches at the arrow embedded in her chest and falls to the ground. The Daedra advancing upon Jacob and Altano begin to disintegrate, wasting away into ash even as they stalk forwards.

Altano looks at her, and nods.

But poor Jacob falls to his knees beside her, sobbing of his regrets and how much he wishes he could have taken it back. But then his voice, too, fades, and he slumps over her body, dead. His wounds must have been more severe than either of them had realized.

“A bit anticlimactic,” she admits, looking over the room. Aside from the dais and altar at the far end, there is absolutely nothing within the wide, circular room. Nothing but the stone of the walls, floor, and ceiling. It appears as though no one has stepped foot within this room for years.

“We should be grateful it was so easy.” Altano mutters. He steps closer to the dais. Upon it, rests a blackened mace. “This mace… This may be what her connection to Molag Bal came from.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not by itself, no,” Altano demonstrates by hefting it from the altar, and looping it into his belt.

Eres does _not_ like that.

“I don’t think that’s wise…”

“I have to bring it back to the Temple,” Altano says. “Thorondir will know what to do with it. Some way to seal it, or at least… cleanse it, somehow, that it might not corrupt any others.”

“When do we leave?”

“I’ll go ahead.” Eres frowns. “There’s something else I need you to handle. There’s a pond, with a little shack on it near Ivarstead. A witch and her child are said to live there. I need you to track them down and take care of them.”

Eres looks pointedly around them. “ _Now_?”

“Yes, _now_ ,” Altano retorts. “I think they might have actually been connected to all this. That man’s sword was cursed, did you see it?” Was that what that blackish smoke had been? “The rumors I heard of this witch was that they’d come here to find a cure for a curse. If this is all related, I want to know who’s behind it. _Especially_ if Rahel here isn’t the last we’ll see of this conspiracy. We don’t exactly have a lot of options right now for us to send out other scouts. I need you to do this for me while I go back to the Temple.”

Eres lets out a long-suffering sigh, and throws her hands in the air. “Alright, fine. I’ll—take care of this witch, or whatever. What about all the Vigilants here?”

Altano frowns. “We don’t have time for proper funerals, here. Burn them.” And then he jogs for the stairs.

Eres stares hard at his back. She has lost count of how many times she has asked herself the same question, but it only seems to get more pressing with time.

What in the bloody _hell_ had she gotten herself into?


	10. Chapter 10

ACT II  
CHAPTER X  
“NO MERCY”

Ivarstead is not a village Eres has ever been to, but she knows it to be the site of religious pilgrimage. Here in Skyrim, amongst those who still worship Talos, the pilgrimage up the thousand-and-some stairs to High Hrothgar is a sacred, religious rite. Eres herself knows little about it – her father had only ever mentioned it once, but they had lived in the seat of the Empire, after all, and such worship, or even talk, of Talos was banned.

It takes her the entire day to reach Ivarstead by way of carriage, passing through Shor’s Stone on the way. She notices, gratefully, that no one there seems to have missed the Khajiit Mar’so. If nothing else, it does not appear that being tried for murder is something she will have to worry about in the immediate future.

For now. Stendarr asks much of his Vigilants, doesn’t he?

The little shack on the pond, located just a couple of hours south of Ivarstead, and conveniently out of immediate sight to any who pass on the road, seems innocent enough. It might have taken her less time to find it, had she known her way around these woods. As it was, she’d had to follow the scent of algae and hope there was not more than one still-water pond in the vicinity.

She crosses the bridge with some trepidation. Though she has never truly taken her safety for granted, the Beacon has made it all too obvious just how powerful these – summoners and their followers could be.

Was Rahel, the woman who had called herself Bal, and who had once been Jacob’s wife – whose soul he had sold to Molag Bal, was she the summoner they had been searching for all along?

Or had she, like the others, merely been manipulated and controlled by an outside force, for a deeper and more sinister purpose? Just how much did all of this intertwine?

Eres crosses the first bridge, and then the second, to reach the small little shack situated on the center of a small mote of land at the middle of the pond. A soft morning fog rises from the water, shrouding the area in a thick, grayish mist.

Somehow, it makes the little shack itself appear sinister.

Eres shakes her head. Not everything is out to get her, least of all a little house on a pond. It’s just that the events of recent days has set her on edge. She needs to keep her mind clear, not fall prey to paranoia.

The front door is open.

Eres palms her dagger, in much the same way she had against Jo’vanni – just in case. She does not know how powerful this witch may be.

With her free hand, she pushes open the door, and steps inside.

“Oh, hello!”

Eres freezes.

A little girl smiles up at her, a little doll in her hands that she uses to wave cheerily up at Eres. The little girl’s dress is threadbare, but might have once been pretty, and upon her head sits crookedly a little hat. Beneath it, her eyes shine with innocence and cheer, and her smile is warm and unsuspecting.

“Hello,” Eres manages, blinking.

“I’m Lilian!” The girl’s smile is so, so bright. It warms her. “What’s your name?”

“Eres,” she answers, and crouches beside her with a smile of her own.

“Are you here to see Mommy?” The girl asks. “Mommy’s not here right now, but she’ll be back later!” A beat, and then the girl gasps, and she smiles even wider. “Or are you a friend of Papa’s?! Is Papa coming home?”

“…Papa?” Eres uses her fingers to ensure that the blade of her dagger is pushed a bit further up her sleeve, well out of the child’s view. “Who is your Papa?”

“He’s _huge_!” The girl jumps up to demonstrate, lifting her hands as high as they will go. Even at her full height, she might only just barely reach Eres’ waist. She might be even younger than Julia, back in Fellburg. “And he wears this really shiny black armor so you can’t see him at night, and—”

Eres’ heart sinks. Damn it. She’d _known_ there was a connection. Altano had even mentioned it, but she’d wanted to believe—she’d hoped they had nothing to do with it. The folded parchment in her pocket feels suddenly as though it might weigh ten pounds.

“I…haven’t seen him,” she tells her, gently. “I’m sorry. I was looking for your mother. I wanted to sp—”

“ _YOU!”_

Eres spins at the bloodcurdling screech from the door way, her ears ringing with the shrillness of it. At the door is a woman, her finger pointed accusingly, her face contorted in rage.

“Get away from my daughter, you—you _MONSTER!_ ”

“ _Me_?” Eres sputters, but then she sees the glow on the woman’s hand, and she scrambles out of the way of an arc of arcane energy.

“Mommy!”

The woman reaches for her, tearing at her robes, screaming at the top of her lungs. Eres grasps both of the woman’s spindly arms, breaks them free of her, and shoves her away.

“Look, I’m not here to—mother _fucker!_ ” She feels a stab of burning hot pain in her thigh. Her knee buckles and she curses, searching – the little girl looks at her with wide, frantic eyes, blood on her hands. Incensed, in pain, and with a witch quickly recovering her wits, Eres has no time to deal with a little girl with a penchant for stabbing people with forks. Not now. She just has to calm this woman down—

The little girl spins and reaches for another. Eres grasps her by the back of her collar and shoves her toward the bed just as the woman tackles her from the side, bringing her to the ground.

Her quiver crushes beneath her, arrows spilled across the floor by the movement, and Eres grits her teeth as her dagger clatters to the ground and spins a distance away, just out of reach.

The woman above her raises her hands high above her head, the air turning to frost and ice and swirling about them, until Eres sees that cold air beginning to solidify—into a mean looking spike almost as big as her own head.

Eres doesn’t think. She grabs one of the arrows beside her, lurches upward, and buries it into the woman’s neck.

Silence. A beat.

What was formed of the deadly spike of ice clatters into Eres’ lap, sure to leave a bruise. The woman’s hands fall just after, her eyes going dim. She leans to one side, and then falls.

Dead.

Another one. Dead. Fuck. If she’d just _listened—_ if Eres had just been able to _explain_ —

But it is so, so incredibly quiet. Far too quiet. Eres can only hear the sound of her own breathing, her own heartbeat slamming in her ears.

There should be another.

She listens, frozen. The witch’s body is still half in her lap. But she listens. There should be another. There should be another heartbeat besides her own. A little one, a frantic one, a scared one—there should be another one.

She doesn’t want to turn around.

Even when she holds her breath, and closes her eyes, and confirms that there is no other heartbeat but her own—she does not want to turn around.

Maybe—maybe the girl hadn’t been real. Maybe she was some—some kind of magical construct. Maybe she’d been dissipated when the witch had been killed, like a summoning. Maybe—

Maybe Eres hadn’t just—

Eres pushes the woman off her. She struggles onto one knee. There is still a fork buried into the outside of her right thigh. Her muscle burns around it, as if angered by the insult of being injured by such a thing.

The little girl had stabbed her, but then—then what? She’d only been protecting her mother, Eres understood that. She hadn’t—she hadn’t attacked her. She’d just…pushed her out of the way. She’d even pushed her toward the bed, but – she thought she did. She thought she’d aimed that way.

If she could only get the little girl out of the way, she’d thought, she could stop her from getting hurt. She’d calm the mother down and they’d all—they’d all have a talk or, or something. Eres would find a way to not have to kill the woman like Altano would surely ask her to. She’d probably been manipulated just the same as the others. She hadn’t been guilty, not really.

But the mother had been so—she hadn’t given Eres a chance to explain.

Eres looks, and wishes she hadn’t.

The little girl lies crumpled at the foot of the bed, halfway to sitting, her neck crooked at an unnatural angle.

However she’d fallen – Eres hadn’t seen it, hadn’t thought to look, hadn’t been careful enough – it had killed her.

 _Eres_ had killed her.

Bile rises in her throat. She looks at her hands. Hands that had killed a little girl. A little girl like Julia. She’d smiled so sweetly at her, too. Not a little girl. She’d killed Lilian.

Her name was Lilian, and Eres had killed her.

It feels like the shadows are reaching for her. Familiar tendrils of black, smoke-like energy slither their way around her hands and up her arms.

Eres closes her eyes, and welcomes the curse that threatens to strangle her. She has killed an innocent. An innocent _child_ , at that. If there is anyone who deserves to be cursed, it is she.

When she wakes, it is to the sound of a tittering, maniacal laughter.

“Ohhh, hehehehe,” the voice chortles, “look at you. Poor little _Vigilant_ , lost her way!”

Eres opens her eyes, and looks into the face of a Hagraven, leaning over her. The stench of her breath is worse even than that of the walking dead Draugr.

“Wh…” Eres shifts, tries to move. Her limbs feel as lead, heavy and unresponsive. Her head swims. “What’s…happened to me?”

“Poor little Vigilant, lost her way!” The Hagraven repeats, in a shrill, sing-song tone. “Even your god has abandoned you, today.”

“M…god?” It feels nearly impossible to stand, like she moves through molasses. For a moment, she cannot remember why. Then her hand brushes against the utensil still sticking out of her thigh and she nearly collapses back to the floor.

Right. She’d been injured. She passed out? Or had she fallen asleep? Had she imagined that black smoke?

“Stendarr, that one grows senile, methinks,” the Hagraven titters. “Cursing his own servants now, is he?” The wretched old woman tosses her head back and laughs. “Oh, you’ve done a right one, you did. I couldn’t have done it better myself!”

The witch points a long, crooked finger at her, the nail so long that it curls up under it. “You saved me the trouble, you did. You cleaned up so nicely. Are you _sure_ you want to serve Stendarr? I must admit,” the witch rubs her hands together, “I have come upon a bit of a…shortage, you see. Vigilants just love meddling in my business, killing all my little friends.”

This…this woman. She’d been the one!

“It was you… wasn’t it? All of this?”

Thin, mottled lips stretch into a wide grin, over teeth so rotted they are blackened in her mouth. “Little old me? ‘Fraid not, dearie. Even _I_ must answer to my master.”

The woman pauses, tilting her head. Her smile stretches ever further.

“Speaking of masters,” she drawls. “shouldn’t you be getting back to yours? Perhaps he can find a way to remove that curse of yours but—wait! You _do_ serve the god of Justice, you do. And look at you, killing little children. Tsk, tsk.”

Eres feels sick.

“You’re finished, you are!” The Hagraven laughs again. “Your days are numbered, little Vigilant! Finished!”

Eres lurches past her, out the door. The Hagraven croons endlessly at her back, taunting her.

“You killed a little girl, you did!” That witch shouts at her. “Stendarr will never forgive you!”

Eres hangs her head, and keeps walking.

What use is a God’s forgiveness, if she does not have her own?


	11. Chapter 11

ACT II  
CHAPTER XI  
“THE ENDLESS FALL”

Traveling from Ivarstead to Dawnstar and then up into the hills where the Temple of Stendarr awaits takes Eres two full days of dreary travel. Even with the added expediency of taking a carriage, the pass through the mountains north towards Dawnstar has always been a treacherous one, and with winter in full swing now, it takes even longer.

Making the trek into the mountains from Dawnstar up to the Temple itself had never felt so draining. More than once she wonders – would she even be welcome at the Temple now, with Stendarr’s curse laid upon her?

With innocent blood on her hands?

More than once, she considers turning around. Returning to Dawnstar, and then taking carriage to Rorikstead, and finding her way back home to Fellburg.

Cursed or no, her home will always be her home. Yosef and Johanna and even little Julia might welcome her return – entirely unaware of what she has done. What she has become.

A child-murderer.

Could she even look at Julia the same way again, knowing that she has killed a girl of her age? Or little Neil?

How far had she gone to protect them, to provide for them? She’d killed innocent people—people like Lilian, or Balor, or even the Khajiit Jo’vanni, who had committed no more crime than being manipulated by a darker force.

Could a man be blamed for a crime he committed under duress? Did the fault lie in him, or the one who pressured him into making bad choices? And what of someone like Eres herself, who had done bad things for what she believed was the greater good?

Did the lives of those she saved truly outweigh the ones of those she’d taken before their time?

Eres’ hands clench into fists. She ducks her head from the wind and snow as she crosses into the Stuhn Ravine, and further still, through the narrow pass between two cliff faces that the Temple is situated between.

The brisk chill of winter seeps into her bones, freezing her from the inside out. And still, she finds herself stopping at the foot of the great statue of Stendarr outside the gates.

Stendarr, with his arms spread wide, a great warhorn resting in his hands, his face turned toward the sky.

She has been cursed by him. The God of Justice, the God of Mercy, of Righteousness – he has deemed her not only unworthy of his protection, but one to be smote by him. If she enters the Temple, will the curse take her, as it should?

Eres would not blame him.

But, perhaps Altano… He said that Thorondir may know how to cleanse the Mace of Molag Bal. If Thorondir could truly purify a relic from a god as abhorrent as Molag Bal, surely he would know of a way to rid Eres of this curse placed upon her? Surely, in his time as a Vigilant, he would know how to cure her, or how she might repent.

She may be little more than a fraud of a Vigilant, but she does not want to live the rest of her life in fear of what might become of her.

Thorondir can help, she is sure of it. And if he can’t—there must be someone who can.

Eres turns away from the unmoving statue, and crosses through the gate proper and beyond it.

How strange. Where are the guards, Eres wonders. There’s usually at least a few able-bodied Vigilants patrolling about outside, just in case. Have they all gone inside? Perhaps to deal with the Mace? Would it need the strength of so many Vigilants to purify that they would leave the entrance unguarded?

Eres frowns, and opens the door.

“Well, well, well,” she hears, as she brushes the snow from her cloak. “What do we have here? I didn’t think you’d make it here in time, I admit.”

When she looks up, Altano sits before her. On the altar.

On the altar, which is stained with blood. The blade he rests across his lap, idly running his fingers across it, is stained with blood.

There is blood on the walls. There is blood on the stone floors. There is blood splattered across his drab robes. All over his hands. Spattered across his face, his mask.

Thorondir’s head is at his feet. His body is not attached. When Altano stands, languid and casual, he kicks it until it rolls, lopsidedly, halfway across the room. It bumps into a low lying shelf and stops, a trail of sluggishly leaking blood behind it.

Her mouth opens. She breathes in the coppery tang of freshly spilled blood.

“You—”

“Yes,” Altano smiles. It is the same cold, spine-chilling smile he had given her when they met. “ _Me_.”

He does not walk toward her. He grabs the ceremonial cloth from the altar, and makes a show of wiping the blood from his blade as he speaks.

“I had meant to bring you with me, you know.” He says. “I really _did_ need an apprentice. But you—you just had to be one of the good ones, didn’t you? But I did like you, for what it’s worth.” He shrugs. “I thought you’d take longer to deal with that witch, but you—”

He pauses, and peers at her, tilting his head. Then he smiles again, his grin stretching nearly to his ears.

“Maybe I was wrong, after all. Stendarr has forsaken you.”

The numbness of shock, of horror, of guilt, even, for not making it back quicker – wears off. Her body snaps into action, drawing her bow and nocking an arrow in one smooth movement.

“Drop the Mace!”

She’d known it, _damn it_. Why had she let him walk off with that Mace? She hadn’t liked it when he’d taken it, and she’d just let him go, and now he had killed all these people and it was _her fault_ , again! If she’d stopped him, maybe—

Maybe…

Was it even the Mace? Was that what Altano had wanted all along, and the Mace had been only part of it? Had the summoner and Altano been working together, the entire time? And what of the Hagraven, at Ivarstead? Was she in on this, too?

Had they drawn her into this, for the sole purpose of watching her squirm when it all came to a head?

Altano chuckles at her. “I don’t think so.”

He raises one of his hands, waving it in the air almost lazily. Eres hears the deep _fwoom_ of a rift tearing itself open behind him, and then the droning hum of an active portal.

She has only seen them in brief, blinks of moments, when a Daedra is summoned. That Altano so casually opens one on his own, and that it remains open as it does – just how much power has Molag Bal given him? What is he planning?

“Genghis.”

 _Fwoom_ —another portal opens, right in front of Altano, and out steps a Daedra nearly twice her size. His sword is already drawn, his eyes glowing red within his dark helmet, and he does not look like the Daedra Eres has faced before.

This one looks like he could tear her apart with his bare hands.

“Genghis, take care of her.” Altano turns, but he does not miss the opportunity to smile at her. “I have a ritual to finish.”

Altano steps through the first portal, and vanishes into the ether.

The Daedra raises his sword.

She doesn’t have time for this. Eres sprints towards it, and, by the momentary pause of the thing, seems to have managed to catch it by surprise – but she darts right past him, headlong, as if he doesn’t exist at all—and charges right into the closing portal Altano had left behind.

Eres lands in a manner that is incredibly appropriate for how she feels. Not expecting what she meets on the other side, her foot hits the ground with such sudden force that her knee buckles from under her and she rolls – just barely catching herself.

She at least manages to keep the momentum, pushing herself to her feet, but it hadn’t been exactly ideal. If Altano had been waiting at the other end, he could have easily gotten his blows in before she recovered.

She finds herself in a familiar room – though her head swims to look at it, and realize how far she’s traveled in a mere instant.

The altar just inside Stendarr’s Beacon rests just before her, and a strange, foreboding hum echoes from below her feet. Altano must have already headed for the altar, and perhaps that sound is…whatever dark ritual he might be doing down there. What could his end goal be?

Behind her, she hears a guttural groan, and turns. The Daedra she had left behind sends first an arm, then part of his chest, his head through the portal, and just as he’s lifting a leg to step inside—

A thunderous crack so loud that her ears rings and her heart leaps in her chest echoes throughout the room as the portal suddenly _snaps_ shut at once.

The Daedra’s torso turns to ash before it hits the ground.

A cold chill runs up Eres’ spine. If she’d even been a few _seconds_ later, that could have been her. She’d so blindly leapt in after Altano she hadn’t even considered what might happen if it closed on her.

Well. Noted for future reference: stepping through strange portals may result in some level of dismemberment. Use caution.

The relief that she has all her extremities is the only relief she has felt in quite some time, and perhaps the only relief she will get. She has no time to waste.

Eres turns, away from the ashes behind her, and sprints down the stairs, taking them two, then three at a time. She might have taken four, even, if her legs were long enough, but she ran as fast as she could. Maybe if she reached him quickly enough, she could disarm him, get him away from the Mace, stop whatever ritual he’d started before he managed to finish it—

_“MURDERER!”_

Eres skids to a stop, and very nearly falls to her knees.

 _Lilian_.

No, it isn’t Lilian, not really – but a manifestation of her. Her spirit. Her soul. The edges of her form are misty and near translucent, to the extent that Eres can see what lies behind her _through_ her, but there is no mistaking that small, rounded face. The dark hair. The crooked hat that Eres had itched to straighten.

Except now, Lilian’s eyes are not bright with cheer or innocence but with anger, and hatred, and, yes, even fear.

 _“You killed me!”_ The child screams, her voice seeming to echo within Eres’ mind and yet – distant, too, all at once, as though she shouts from an incredible distance. _“Why did you kill me?! I just wanted to see Papa again and now I can’t! Look what you did!”_

“You’re not real,” Eres mutters, closing her eyes and shaking her head. A shudder racks her body all the same, even as she moves past her.

She _could_ be real. If Daedra could be summoned from the other side, could spirits like Lilian’s be pulled in the same manner? Could Altano have done this, knowing that if she followed him, he could break her this way?

But how would he have known about the little girl? How could he have known about Lilian?

She does not open her eyes until she is passed the cold chill of the girl’s form, and then she continues beyond her, slowing – hesitant. Fearful. What other spectres might Altano use to haunt her?

 _“I told you to go back,”_ says the mercenary, when she sees him leaning against the archway that separates the first hall from the living quarters she must pass through to reach the basement. _“This could’ve all been avoided if you’d just turned away.”_

She looks away from him. She keeps walking.

In some part of her mind, she recognizes that his spirit has faded behind her, just as another mists into form in front of her near the stairs leading further downward, perched upon a crate.

In death, his bandage remains tied about his head. With his good eye, he glares at her. _“I told you to leave me alone! I told you, and you didn’t listen to me! Now look what you’ve become!”_

“Shut up.” She glares right back at him, scowling until his form dissipates into the same mist that had formed him.

For all she knows, it’s his fault she’s seeing him now. Was this what they’d meant when they said the Eye would drive a man mad if he saw it? Was she mad, now? Had she finally lost it?

She keeps moving.

 _“Lilian! Lilian!!”_ The mother doesn’t even see her. _“Lilian, where are you! Come here, Lilian!!”_

 _I killed her_ , Eres thinks, but doesn’t say. She turns her gaze away from the woman and her panic.

Mar’so waits for her halfway down the hall, his tail flicking to and fro in the dim light. He tilts his head as she approaches, and smiles.

 _“You are not so different from Mar’so,”_ he says lowly, and winks at her. _“Is Mar’so looking into the mirror? If you shatter the mirror, pieces of it will hurt you. Even Mar’so understands that.”_

 _I’m nothing like you_.

Eres does not speak to him. Speaking to them makes them real, and she would rather pretend that they are not.

 _“Jo’vanni thanks you,”_ says the next spirit she sees. In death, he carries Campener’ra’s folded pelt in his hands, held before him like a sacred shroud. _“You retrieved his wife. Jo’vanni cannot thank you enough.”_

She halts, caught off guard. Is he not going to taunt her like the others? Was that not what they were for?

He, too, tilts his head at her. Then, almost sagely, he nods. _“If you are tired, stop and rest. If you are disgusted with your duty, abandon it. Jo’vanni would not blame you. Nobody would blame you.”_

Abandon her duty? How many times had she thought of doing just that?

When the letter from Fellburg had come, her first instinct had been to run. Run away from the Vigilants and Altano, run back to her home, run back to Yosef and the others. When Altano had pushed her, she’d thought more than once – was it all worth it? Was everything she was doing worth it, in the end?

She still had no answer for that. But, at this point, here and now – the option to run was no longer a feasible one. She’d come too far. She’d endured too much. She had already bloodied her hands for Stendarr and his so-called “Mercy” – and even in that vein, she had failed by killing Lilian.

She had not meant to, but that did not change the outcome.

Lilian was dead because of her, because of this “duty” she had volunteered for.

If she turned away now, and ran, would Lilian’s death have meant anything at all?

She could not run.

When she sees Jacob, outside the great stone doors that lead to the altar room, she can only find the strength to sigh.

This one, at least, she had not killed with her own hands. At least _this_ one spirit is not a spirit she had made.

 _“Young Vigilant,”_ he greets her, and his lips pull into a wan smile. Is it just her, or does it seem like he pities her? _“Stendarr will never abandon you. Have faith. Do not look back. There is only forward. You must carry on. Do not hesitate.”_

She wishes she could be so confident. Stendarr may not have abandoned her, but he had cursed her. What could she do now to please him? To repent? To lift this curse that ails her?

Eres pushes the stone doors open.

Standing in the center of the altar room is none other than Altano, his hood and mask lowered, his arms spread wide and his grin wide with maniacal glee.

Beside him, the blackened, charred-like form of a great dragon with a pincered head looms over him, large red eyes seeming to glow with a fire lit from within.

“Molag Bal! My Lord! Look what all I have done for you! See my dedication, my power! Look how many souls I’ve corrupted for you! Please, grant me a place at your—"

The great pincered head snaps downward, its giant maw closing around Altano’s upper body and then swinging, left and right and back again until his body is but a ragdoll between his teeth and then it opens his mouth to fling Altano’s body across the wide room to land in a crumpled heap near the altar.

 ** _“Fool,”_** it spits, **_“what use have I for you?”_**

And then that great, pincered head swings towards her.

 ** _“You, however…”_** and the dragon-like mass of black ink lifts itself onto its hind legs and straightens, growing taller and taller and taller until she must crane her head all the way back to look up at him and meet those blazing, horrifically red eyes.

 ** _“Child of Stendarr.”_** His chuckle seems to make the very floor shake beneath her feet.

**_“You, I may find use for…”_ **

Dawnbreaker hums mutinously at her back, thrumming so violently that she can feel its movement through what little armor she wears beneath her robes. She can almost hear Meridia’s ethereal voice within her mind, screaming down at her, _demanding_ that she cleanse the world of the darkness that is Molag Bal’s physical form.

But her feet remain planted. Her bow held loose in her hands. She stares up at the monstrosity that is Molag Bal and she has never felt more insignificant.

 ** _“Kneel before me and obey,”_** the beast demands, and it rocks down onto its fore legs, the ground shaking with each step it takes until its maw is mere _feet_ from Eres—until she can smell nothing but its putrid breath, washing over her, as hot as though he might blow fire at any moment.

**_“Surrender your soul to me. Do this and I promise you a swift death.”_ **

Her voice dies somewhere between her throat and her mouth. She can barely hear herself think over the sound of her own heartbeat slamming in her ears, pounding against her ribcage. She feels as though her entire body quakes like the ground he crushed beneath his claws and yet, somehow –

Somehow, her head shakes.

It is as much of a surprise to him as it is to herself.

 ** _“Mortal!”_** he snarls, his eyes flaring so bright she winces at the sight of them – **_“You DARE turn down my merciful offer?”_** His maw stretches, baring fangs almost as big as herself, dripping with viscous black fluid that sears the ground where it drips.

 ** _“I hope you keep this spirit when dying, mortal,”_** Molag Bal muses, and he looms over her as he did Altano just moments before. " ** _You may scream. You may beg. But I have offered you mercy once,”_** he hisses, **_“now I will make sure you suffer.”_**

He rears back, his chest expanding as he pulls in a great breath.

Eres reaches for a hilt she has not touched in some time. Dawnbreaker roars from its sheath, vibrating in her grip. The glowing orb at its hilt pulses once, twice, and then explodes with inner light – bathing the chamber in a great radiance that can only be that of a vengeful God’s. Something like righteous anger boils up into her veins, burning the fear away.

 _‘Rend him into pieces! Banish his foul darkness from my realm!’_ Meridia. The Daedric Prince of Life, and perhaps Molag Bal’s polar opposite. It was no surprise that she had sensed his presence through the blade she had gifted Eres.

 _‘Deliver unto him my Justice.’_ It feels as though a great weight lifts from her shoulders, and in its place, an incredible lightness to her limbs as though she weights almost as nothing.

Stendarr.

A Vigilant with the blessings of a Prince and a Divine versus the giant, dragon-like manifestation of what might be the most evil entity amongst all the Daedric Princes.

This is _not_ what Eres had signed up for.


	12. Chapter 12

ACT II  
CHAPTER XII  
“THE LANDING”

Distance.

Eres needs distance. She needs to figure out how to bring him down, to make him fall, to make him not so—so _gargantuan_.

When Molag Bal’s giant maw opens before her, she already knows what’s coming. She leaps back from the balls of her feet, and, with the lightness afforded her by Stendarr Himself, his jaws close on nothing but air as she rockets back several yards at once.

She skids to a stop, unbalanced, unaccustomed to the inhuman agility offered to her by the blessing of a God.

 ** _“You believe Stendarr’s Blessing will save you, Mortal?”_** Molag Bal roars at her, raises one of his giant claws, and slams it into the ground.

She feels a roar of heated air at her back, and then her side, and a great wall of fire spreads from either side behind her, spreading along the outer wall of the chamber until she is trapped within a ring of superheated flames.

The way she had come is blocked by the flames, licking hungrily at the ceiling above her head. There is no escape. She will have to defeat him if she hopes to survive.

In her hands, Dawnbreaker thrums so intensely that she very nearly loses her grip on the hilt. The lighted gem set just beneath the guard blazes ever bright, so radiant that it hurts her eyes to look at it. She turns it towards Molag Bal. The blade aches to disperse his darkness.

Molag Bal’s form turns, his tail whipping out behind him, aiming to knock her off her feet, into the fire – Eres again leaps out of the way of the sweeping blow, and when she lands she takes off at a sprint.

Molag Bal is a dragon, however blighted and corrupted his form may be. Almost as large as the chamber itself, his movements are restricted to how well he can maneuver within it – and by his size.

Molag Bal cannot move quickly.

But Eres, with the blessing of Stendarr, _can_.

She darts around him, behind him, and as his humongous form begins to shift to follow her, she ducks beneath his tail and swipes the glowing blade at the back of his hind leg.

The blade bursts with light, tearing through scale and flesh, and a spray of vile black blood bursts from the wound.

She hears a _fwoosh_ and feels a buffet of wind around her and rolls to avoid the sudden shift of Molag Bal’s body – then ducks again as one his foreclaws swipes at the air she’d just occupied.

She’d forgotten about his wings. Using them, he could add speed to his movements.

The gash she’d opened in his leg was not deep. It bleeds sluggishly onto the ground behind him, the oozing black smoking where it touches the ground, seeming to boil where it hits the ground. Eres knows she cannot let it touch her.

_How?_

Eres can dodge and weave, and get her swipes in where she can before he turns – but he hardly seems even to feel the pain of her blows, as much as Dawnbreaker seems to hum louder when she cuts at him.

_How can I beat him?_

How do you defeat a God?

But this – this dragon form of his, it is not _truly_ Molag Bal. If it were, could she even have stood against him at all? Would even Dawnbreaker have been able to wound him?

No, Altano had summoned him. Prince or not, Molag Bal was still _Daedra_. That meant that his summoning was Altano’s doing – he could not have come to this plane on his own.

Altano still lives, if barely – but perhaps that is the reason she has been able to hurt him. Perhaps Molag Bal’s own connection to the physical realm is linked to Altano’s own life.

If she could only _get to him_.

But Molag Bal must know, for he positions himself in front of Altano’s prone form at every instance he can. Even the few moments where he shifts away, he is close enough that one movement could bring her down if she approached him.

_Die already, you fucking bastard!_

Eres can’t care less which of them dies first – though Altano would be easier.

 _Think_. Eres leaps over the swipe of Molag Bal’s foreclaw, and spins to rake the edge of Dawnbreaker through the webbing of his wing. She feels it tear against the blade, but Molag Bal does not roar or growl or show any hint that he has even felt it.

_Think!_

What weakness did a dragon have?

The scales upon his body are too thick for even Dawnbreaker’s blessed edge to cut through. She cannot attack him from above. The scales on his legs and forearms are weaker, not quite as thick, but she cannot hope to kill him with such insignificant wounds. Taking her blade to the wings may help to ground him, to slow him, but it wouldn’t kill him – they don’t even bleed.

Molag Bal swings his head around for another attempt to snap his jaws around her form and she dances backward from the blow. His jaws snap closed a mere instant later, and a shower of blackened spittle bursts forth from his maw.

Eres hears a sizzle, and then feels fire licking at her arms.

Some of the black spittle had landed upon her arms and burned right through her vambraces.

And then she sees it.

The underbelly.

A dragon’s underbelly is unarmored, unscaled. The soft underside – that was where she could wound him most. But she would have to make it count.

To approach his underside, she’d have to dive right beneath his head while he was distracted – and she’s certain such a trick won’t work twice.

Eres lures him backward, jumping away from his attacks. Her calves burn with inner heat, and sharp pains lance down into her feet and back up into her thighs and back.

The speed is still there, the agility, the incredible ability to leap yards in a single bound, to cross the chamber in mere seconds at a sprint – but her muscles are not built for such movements, even with the blessing of Stendarr upon her. Her body can’t keep this up much longer.

Molag Bal raises his head, turning to look at her as she again slips out of his grasp. Is it just her, or does the glow of his eyes seem dimmer than it had been before?

It’s now or never.

Eres waits until he lifts his head, rearing back – and with a burst of speed, she hurls herself beneath it and swings Dawnbreaker up from the ground, into the underside of his neck. For a moment, the blade jerks and catches – but with another yank, it begins to slide through.

Black fluid seeps onto the blade, running down the enchanted steel and over the guard and onto her hands, grasping the hilt. The shout that emerges from her mouth is less of a war cry and more of a howl of restrained agony as the acidic liquid sears through her flesh – but she runs, she runs with that blade buried near to the hilt in the dragon’s underside; she pulls the blade through behind her, above her head, and there is the sound of something above her sloughing and sloshing and a torrent of vile innards cascades down her back as she rends him open from throat to tail.

With the last burst of Stendarr’s blessing upon her, she bursts forth from beneath him, rolling under his lashing tail as the great black dragon collapses behind her.

Dawnbreaker clatters to one side of her, her hands spasming with the pain of the acid eating through her gauntlets. She only just manages to rip them off of her in a panic, throwing them aside, and for good measure she strips off her outer robe as well, peeling it from her back before the acid can burn through her armor, too—

And Molag Bal’s pincered head swings towards her.

And then he starts to chuckle, deep and guttural. Even as the glowing red of his eyes dim entirely and the body of the dragon sags into death, she hears his voice rumbling in the air around her.

**_“Impressive, I admit. For a Child of Stendarr.”_ **

The sound of his voice is somehow more terrifying without a body to accompany it.

**_“I will not forget you, little elf. You may yet live – now. But be assured, should even an ounce of corruption touch that precious soul of yours…”_ **

Eres could swear on her life that she sees that giant maw grinning at her with his next words:

**_“I will drag you into my realm myself.”_ **

At once, the ring of fire winks out. The room chills so abruptly that the sweat upon her back makes her shiver. And somehow – the air in the room feels lighter around her, as though the mere presence of that dark entity that was Molag Bal had weighed down the world around him.

Beside her, the light upon Dawnbreaker’s guard starts to dim, bit by bit.

 _‘You have done well,’_ she hears, and then it dims entirely. Meridia’s presence has left her, and the blade, and now it remains as it had always been – merely a sword, with an exceptionally bright gem set into the guard.

Every muscle in her body feels as though it is screaming, but she forces herself to her knees, and, unable to walk just yet, she crawls to Altano’s prone form, lying just feet from her.

He turns his head ever so slightly as she approaches, his breath hardly more than soft rasps of air between his bloodied lips.

“Please…” he manages, and coughs up dark, putrid blood. “I was… corrupted by him… The Mace… destroy it…” His eyes turn pleading, glistening with unshed tears. “Please, give me—Stendarr…Forgive me…”

She almost laughs in his face, incredulous. He expects her to allow him to pass peacefully, after all that he’s done? After all that he has put into motion? After all the people he forced her to kill? All the blood on his hands, and her own by association?

She grabs his own blade from his waist, and holds it above him with great effort.

There is but one rite he deserves.

“Look not to men for Forgiveness, for it is not theirs to offer,” she intones, her voice low. His eyes widen as the words fall from her lips, and the tears that fall from his eyes leave tracks on his dirtied skin.

“ _No,”_ he wails, shaking his head.

“Look not to men for Justice, for it is not the place of Man to judge.” She places the point of his sword at the base of his neck. He swallows against it, still shaking his head, pleading with her – begging for her not to damn him.

She can do nothing else.

“Look not to men for Mercy, for they cannot provide it.”

As if summoned by her words, black smoke curls around the blade, twisting and turning and wisping about its length as it travels from her hand, wrapped around the hilt, to Altano’s waiting form below it as Stendarr’s curse reaches out for his soul.

“The Mercy of Stendarr does not extend to Daedra worshippers, Altano.” She holds his gaze. “You were the one who taught me that.”

“But I was corrupted, I—”

“Beg your _Lord_ for Mercy,” she spits at him. “For Stendarr and the Vigil has none to spare.” And she plunges the blade into his throat.

It is done.

Altano is dead.

The Vigilants of Stendarr within Skyrim have been crippled, and for all Eres knows, may take months or even years to recover their numbers. She does not know.

At first, when her legs work again and she manages to peel herself from the floor of that horrendous chamber - she considers going back to Fellburg. Forgetting the Vigilants ever existed. She has done enough, she thinks.

Stendarr lifted His curse from her, and, as far as she knows, cursed Altano’s soul to be tormented for eternity. She’s not entirely sure – and she doesn’t truly care for his fate. The point is that he is dead, and he can hurt no one else.

The summoner, too, is dead, and all of those she manipulated. Mostly by Eres’ own hands, at the behest of Altano.

All things considered, she feels she has done her job as well as she could, under the circumstances. At least, she does feel that way, until she thinks of Altano, and wonders if she could have stopped it before it got out of hand.

If she had paid more attention to him, would she have figured it out sooner? Would she have known what he planned to do? If she had stopped him from grabbing that Mace, could the Vigilants at the Temple have been saved?

The past cannot be changed, though, and Eres puts it out of mind.

But so, too, does it remind her of those who fell at the Temple. Like the kind and warm Thorondir, who had made her feel welcome amongst strangers. She cannot leave them to rot.

And so she returns. It is two days’ ride from Riften, and she has far too much time to think within that carriage. When she reaches the Temple sometime later, all she wants to do is find the bodies of those Altano had killed, give them their proper rites, and then leave – and never return. She has done her duty.

But when she enters that Temple again, after what somehow seems like years after only a few days—the stone floor is scrubbed clean. There is no spatter of blood upon the walls.

The altar is polished fresh, and new offerings lay upon it. Several carefully bound bundles of dried flowers, tied with twine, resting at Stendarr’s feet. A single glass of wine, filled halfway.

Eres, stunned, moves further inside. The bodies that had littered the alchemy lab, the dining hall – are all gone. Cleaned away as if they had never been there.

For a moment, she wonders – had she dreamt it all? Had everything with Altano truly happened? It was all _just_ crazy enough to have been a terrible nightmare, but—

“Oh!”

She spins on her heels, facing the girl who has suddenly appeared behind her, at the landing of the stairs leading downward into the records room.

Eres’ mouth drops open. _“Gwyneth?_ ”

“Oh, _Eres,_ ” Gwyneth breathes, and the books in her arms drop carelessly to the floor. She dashes forward and wraps her arms about Eres’ middle so suddenly that the breath leaves her. “I thought Altano had killed you!”

“ _Me_?” Eres pulls herself away from the embrace. “How did _you_ survive?”

“I,” Gwyneth’s eyes are wet with tears, but she steadfastly blinks them away. “I heard the commotion upstairs. The shouting, the—sounds of battle,” she says haltingly. “I have never been trained to fight. I hid… Like a coward. I hid in the records room, beneath my desk. I guess he never thought to look for me…”

“Is there…?”

Gwyneth smiles sadly, and shakes her head. “No. Just me. And you, now.” The blonde girl takes a breath, and lets it out all at once in one long, relieved sigh. “I’m so glad I’m not the only one. I’m so glad to see you, Eres. I saw you, when he—”

Eres frowns. “You saw me?”

“When the sounds of fighting died down, I wanted to come upstairs to check… to see if whoever attacked us was gone. But I saw Altano, sitting on the altar…” Gwyneth shudders. “And then I saw you. And then he summoned that Daedra and you ran into that portal after him, and the Daedra went, too—I thought you’d have died for sure, trying to fight them both.”

Eres very nearly laughs. If _only_ she’d only had to fight Altano and a Daedra, and not a bloody God.

But Gwyneth looks fragile, and near about to fall to pieces as it is, and Eres thinks of how she must have felt, all alone here in this Temple, surrounded by the dead, not knowing if Altano would return or if Eres herself had died, and, presumably – taking it into her own hands to clean the Temple and prepare last rites for those who had passed. All alone.

Eres decides not to tell her of Molag Bal.

Eres also decides that she cannot leave. Not just yet. She cannot leave Gwyneth here alone, after what’s happened. She’s barely even an adult.

“With Thorondir gone,” Gwyneth starts, “we’ll need a new Keeper.”

Eres reads the question in her eyes, and wants with everything within her to say no. There is still Fellburg, waiting for her. But Fellburg is well-guarded, now, and they don’t need her so immediately as Gwyneth seems to. Even thinking of the possibility of leaving Gwyneth to deal with it all herself makes her stomach churn with guilt.

_Damn it._

She has to.

“I…guess that’s me, now,” Eres says, and can scarcely believe it herself.

Gwyneth smiles softly at her, gratefully. “Thank you, _Keeper_. I really am glad you’re alive, you know.”

“Yeah, well,” Eres glances upon the statue of Stendarr, with his one hand raised out beseechingly, and the other with its goblet. “It was a close one.”

Gwyneth turns to pick up the books she had dropped, and hums as she carries them up the stairs. She seems almost – cheery, considering what has happened.

Eres supposes that finding out you’re not the only survivor of a great calamity will do that.

Keeper of the Vigil. _Her_ – someone who’d hardly even have described herself as religious before. Eres, who’d become a Vigilant more out of convenience than anything.

But that was the same Eres who had defeated Molag Bal, with the help of Meridia and Stendarr themselves. Perhaps there was something to this religion thing after all. If nothing else, she supposes she owes her life to Stendarr now, in a way.

Eres presses her hand against the statue’s open palm, a silent expression of her gratitude for his aid.

The stone warms.


End file.
